


Red and Gold, A Gilded Shell

by Fuzziestpuppy



Category: Far Cry (Video Games), Far Cry 4, Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Canonical Character Death, Crossover, Drug Use, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, Far Cry Characters, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M, Military Science Fiction, Pacific Rim Graphic Novels, Pacific Rim Setting, Past Abuse, Past Violence, Psychic Bond, The Drift (Pacific Rim), Yuma/Amita is briefly mentioned towards the end
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-09
Updated: 2019-05-23
Packaged: 2019-07-08 19:46:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 51,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15937037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fuzziestpuppy/pseuds/Fuzziestpuppy
Summary: It hasn’t been twenty-four hours since they’ve met...hell, they haven’t even Drifted yet, and Ajay's already starting to hate this Pagan Min guy a little.





	1. The Shatterdome

**Author's Note:**

> UPDATE: Back on track!
> 
>  
> 
> The idea for this Pacific Rim/Far Cry 4 crossover that nobody asked for (except for that one guy maybe) came from a post on the esteemed [Patho's](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghostsoldier/pseuds/patho) Tumblr [ here](http://pathopharmacology.tumblr.com/post/119169044247/submission-from-macgyvertape-since-i-have-you-to), and I couldn't stop thinking about it. And you all know how that goes. 
> 
> Thank you, [brokibrodinson](https://archiveofourown.org/users/brokibrodinson/pseuds/brokibrodinson) for being an awesome beta for this thing, and letting me bounce ideas off of you at all hours of the day and night. I appreciate you so much!
> 
> I’ve done my best to write this in such a way so that it is followable even if you know only one fandom, or neither of them.
> 
> I'm also assuming that the Drift looks like the gold spaces from the Pacific Rim graphic novels and not the dull, boring gray from the movie.

\----------------------------------

A gilded shell  
Red and gold  
The brisk swell  
Rippled both shores

T.S. Eliot – _The Waste Land_

\----------------------------------

**Initiate**

Cadet Ajay Ghale stepped off the transport and was promptly slapped in the face by a wave of heat and humidity and the smell of sea air, shocking after the cold and snow of the Jaeger Academy at Kodiak.

He spent the whole trip reading briefing after briefing on the Hong Kong Shatterdome; names of pilots and their mechs, the command structure, even maps of the facility so he would know where everything was…but none of that prepared him for that damp heat, for the glitter of lights and the overwhelming sight of the skyline across Victoria Harbor. This absolutely massive city that he’s supposed to help protect, here on his very first deployment.

Hell, he’s not even a full Ranger yet.

The officer that meets him to give him the tour is unremarkable, except that he gives him a chocolate bar and some packets of instant coffee along with the rec and chow schedules, as a little welcome-in gift. Hey, he thinks, this guy’s all right; he hasn’t seen either since the rationing started. The Shatterdome seems pretty decent already.

The officer takes him to his quarters so he can drop his duffel off (a single no less!) and then they head directly down to the place he wants to see the most: the enormous bays that the Jaegers are stored in, which takes up most of the facility.

It’s pretty amazing to see for himself how many countries have contributed Jaegers to the war effort, and the bays are a swirling and bawdy confusion of bright flags and uniforms and all different races and nationalities and shouted orders in about twelve different languages. Adding to the din are the usual mechanical crashes and the flying sparks from grinders and welders, yelled curses from the techs and crews.

Ajay reads the names of the Jaegers that they pass, and some of them are downright famous.

This is so fucking awesome.

“So,” Ajay says brightly, “I read in the briefings that Australia and Japan need new pilot candidates, and Malaysia is putting another Jaeger into service soon. Any ideas of where I might be assigned?”

The officer stares at him. “Did they give you the wrong mission briefings or something? You’re here on special assignment. They should have told you that you’re going to be with the Kyratis and that we’re putting you with Min over there. Well, depending on how the combat trial goes, of course, but we think it’ll work and you’ll Drift just fine.”

Ajay looks over at the Kyrati contingent and they’re an admittedly rough-looking bunch, except for their pilot: a guy older than Ajay, late forties maybe; a shock of blond hair falling artfully over one eye. He has a toothpick in the corner of his mouth and gives Ajay an appraising look, rakes him top to bottom with his eyes. Fierce and arrogant and just a little amused, like Ajay is a morsel that may or may not pass his inspection. In contrast to his almost piratical looking crew and everyone else in this entire facility, he’s wearing a dress shirt and slacks; plum shirt, dark gray trousers. Tailored and expensive-looking. Definitely not military, oh no.

Their Jaeger is absolutely beautiful though; top-of-the-line, black and gold and sleek and glittering in the bay’s lights. ‘Honey Badger,’ the signage proclaims. _What the fuck is a honey badger?_ Ajay wonders.

Min’s fucking shoes gleam like the Jaeger, his personal Jaeger, if the rumors are true. Apparently in Kyrat, the line between private and government ownership is a bit blurry.

Catching Ajay’s expression, the officer says, “Don’t look so sour, Ghale…if you can Drift with this guy, you’ll win the pot. It’s up to like seven hundred bucks now.”

Now Ajay is really confused. “What pot?”

“Well, nobody’s been able to Drift with him yet, so if you can manage it you’ll be the first. So every time somebody fails, we all chuck a few more dollars in there,” he explains patiently, as if this should make perfect sense.

Ajay considers this with a frown.

“Why? What’s the problem with him?”

“This is off the record, mind you.” He leans closer, confidential.

“I didn’t tell you any of this. He’s meaner than a snake and a pompous prick to boot, but that’s not the reason. They say that it’s weird in his head and that he’s got shit in his mind that nobody can stand to see or something, and you know how it is…you can’t keep secrets in the Drift. You have to trust each other, and nobody trusts him. Or even likes him.”

Ajay can see that, but he’s also having a hard time keeping his eyes off the guy; he seems to compel his attention. Attractive and repellent at once, god. And they’re going to put him with this poncy fuck? Min has yet to take his eyes off of him either, as far as he can tell.

Ajay finally manages to pull his own away.

“So why me? Why do they think I’d be compatible with this guy?”

The officer scoffs. “You know we do our research in this division, and we have good reasons for pilot assignments. The higher-ups think you’ll be compatible because he knew your mother.”

Ajay’s stomach drops, right through the fucking floor.

“…excuse me? What?”

“Well, you were born in Kyrat, right? And this guy is the King, dictator, whatever of Kyrat, the leader guy, and he knew your mom. Apparently _knew_ knew your mom, if you know what I mean.” He says this last bit with a little leer, and then seems to realize how rude he's being and clears his throat. “Err, sorry Ghale.”

Oh my god. That…that can’t be true. She never said…no, not his mom and _that guy._

“So how in the _fuck_ does that make us Drift compatible?” Ajay spits, eyes narrowed.

The officer’s face hardens at that.

“Watch your tone, Cadet, and that’s a stupid question. You’ve been through the training. You know that family and lovers are often more compatible because of genetics and the trust factor. It stands to reason that you might have something in _your_ brain that clicks with his because of who your mom was. We’re going to try it, anyway. Like I said, we’ll do the combat test first and see how that goes. Fair warning, he’s probably not going to hold back much. He’s broken some faces since he’s been here.” The officer rubs at the back of his neck and sighs. “He’ll be a fantastic pilot, one of the best, if we can just find him somebody that can stand him.”

All the while, Min hasn’t taken his eyes off of Ajay, still with that mocking little smile, those hard eyes. 

Fuck this. 

Ajay marches over to him. And of course the prick is taller than him. Just a little, only about an inch or so, but still. Ajay jams his hand out at him, almost poking him in the midsection.

“Hey, I’m Cadet Ajay Ghale, you’re…Ranger? Ranger…uh…Min. Nice to meet you, looks like we’re going to be working together, sorry I don’t know your first name yet.”

Min’s hand comes up slowly, removes the toothpick from the corner of his mouth. Doesn’t take Ajay’s hand, the rude bastard. But his eyes are widening, that little smile falling right off his face. They’re standing directly under the Jaeger, in its immense shadow, and quick as a striking snake Min seizes him and drags him into the light.

“Hey, HEY! What the fuck, man?!” Ajay exclaims, as Min grabs his chin, but it seems as though he only wants to examine his face closely.

“This is some kind of _fucking_ joke, isn’t it?” he snarls…but his eyes lock on Ajay’s, and after a heartbeat or two they warm considerably.

Min lets him go then, straightens his coveralls across his shoulders, fixes his collar, takes his hand. He has big hands, warm and slightly callused. Whiff of expensive cologne.

“Hmm, well. So you are, my boy, so you are.” That voice is like rough silk brushing against his skin, low and intimate. And that accent…fuck, this guy is so weird. And he’s wearing _makeup._ Not just a little eyeliner, oh no, like full on mascara and everything. He’s sort of handsome in an exotic, high-cheekboned kind of way, but that makeup and that absurd haircut contrast so strangely with his hard face and heavy eyebrows and five o’clock shadow. He’s starting to see why people have problems with him.

“Call me Pagan, please,” he says then. He tilts his head appraisingly, like he likes what he sees.

“Now that I have you out here in the light, you do look exceptionally like Ishwari…it’s the eyes.”

Ajay can only gape at him. He feels like he has whiplash already. What’s it going to be like being inside this guy’s _mind?_ His eyes are dark and warm but there’s pain there too…and seeing it he maybe understands a little how this might work, if this guy cared enough about his mother that recognizing her in Ajay’s face would hurt him a little. It’s a shared grief, a connection point. Someone they’ve both lost. He finds himself squeezing this bizarre man’s hand. 

“But be forewarned, Cadet Ajay Ghale,” a little mocking singsong, eyes flicking down to his perfectly regulation dress uniform. He keeps his voice low, for his hearing only, “if we do this, you are going to see things that you would rather not. I can guarantee you that. Things that are going to personally wound you. Fucked up shit. Fair warning, boy.” His eyes travel to the officer standing some distance behind Ajay. “Back out now, if your handlers will let you.”

It’s Ajay’s turn to give him an appraising glance. Challenge accepted.

“I don’t think that’s how it works, uh…Pagan.”

“A pity then. I wish we could have met under better circumstances. But, it is what it is, I suppose.” He sighs. “Is this the part where they make us fight while your commander watches?”

“I think that’s the next step, yeah,” Ajay says. He realizes that he’s still holding Pagan’s hand and drops it in a hurry. Pagan’s eyes crinkle a little in amusement.

“See you in the ring, my boy.”

\----------------------------------

Ajay’s new commander walks with him up to the Kwoon Combat Room personally.

“Cadet, I’m sure you know that we’ve busted your ass about ten steps above where you should be, but do you have any idea why?”

“Sir, I think you really need me to be able to Drift with…uh…Ranger Min, but I’m not sure why. _Is_ he a Ranger?”

“As the leader of a nation he’s a Special Liaison on the books, but Ranger is fine. He’s gone through a lot of the training and already had combat experience when he got here. But the reason that you’re here in the Shatterdome without being a Ranger is because we need this guy. Need him badly. His strategy and tactician scores were off the chart. Very high IQ. Excellent hand-to-hand fighting skills. Didn’t do so hot on the psych parts. Actually,” he pauses, rubbing his chin, “he pretty much bombed the psych parts. People find him arrogant and off-putting and strange, but we have to find somebody that can Drift with him. That’s where you come in, Cadet. Top of your class, the psych tests indicate that you’re steady and stable in the places where he’s not, and you have a…well…fairly unique personal history with him. So, are you going to make this happen, Cadet Ghale?”

“Yessir, I will do my best, sir.”

“That’s good to hear. Now, because of Min’s past…issues, we’ve worked up a special long-term schedule with the Psych department so that you have the best chance for success. You’ll bunk together, you’ll eat together, and you’ll have daily sessions with the Pons headsets to link you strongly before you even set foot in that fancy Jaeger.”

“Yessir,” Ajay says, a little dismayed and trying not to show it. That’s…an awful lot of forced time together with a weird asshole stranger. 

When they arrive Pagan is already there waiting for them, clad in nothing but a pair of…bright pink workout shorts, playing on his phone. His staff is held loosely, carelessly in his other hand. Ajay isn’t sure what he was expecting to see, but he’s surprisingly broad-shouldered and solid looking, little patch of dark hair in the middle of his chest, another trailing down into his shorts and Ajay’s eyes flick back up in embarrassment, but Pagan isn’t looking at them at all.

He’s scarred up too, mostly gunshots; a puckered one just under his ribcage, another puckered one in his shoulder, a long pale line that looks like it was done with a knife on his side. When he turns to put his phone down on the bench, Ajay can see the scar from the exit wound on his back. That one’s by far the worst. Ajay looks up to see Pagan’s eyes on him, watching him stare. He flicks a careless hand at the scar in his shoulder.

“It’s good to be the King,” is all he says, a bitter little twist to his mouth.

“Out on the mat, Min, we don’t have all day.”

“Sir, yes sir,” he replies, with a little ironic touch at his forelock, voice dripping sarcasm. The Commander sighs.

“Just try not to break Ghale today. Begin when you’re ready.”

When Pagan walks out onto the mat, he doesn’t…slouch, exactly, but when he turns to face Ajay, the lines of his body change. Like some part of his brain usually on standby comes online, and he shifts from bored and sarcastic to something smooth and sleek and predatory. Deadly, even. It’s beyond disconcerting. 

“Jesus,” Ajay whispers. He’s also not flourishing the staff around like Ajay’s used to seeing, just holding it comfortably across his body. 

When Ajay hesitates, Pagan calls out, “Are we doing this or not, boy?” It’s not entirely unkind. 

Fine then. Ajay drops into a low stance and approaches him, slow at first, then in a controlled rush at his offside. He aims for the side of Pagan’s neck, his brain noting that Pagan doesn’t appear to be moving or attempting to block. He almost pulls the blow in confusion, but before he can he’s on his back looking up at the ceiling, the end of the staff pressed gently to his windpipe. Pagan’s small smile is almost sweet as he blocks the harsh lights over Ajay. 

“Come on then, up you get,” Pagan says, and pulls him to his feet. The look on his face is a little happy, a little relieved. 

_He thinks that if he beats me badly enough here that the higher-ups will stop this before we Drift,_ Ajay realizes then. Oh, hell no. If his Commander says they need this guy for the war and Ajay is the way to get him, if it means he’ll get to pilot that sleek and beautiful Jaeger out there, he’ll beat this fucker to a bloody pulp.

Ajay comes at him from the back then, a charging rush. A little dishonorable, but he means to _win._ Pagan turns his head, just a little of that smile still curling his lips as Ajay hooks him under the arm with the staff, across the chest and shoulder and throws him bodily. Ajay’s moment of triumph is short-lived, however, as Pagan somehow has an iron grip on Ajay’s wrist and gets a leg in between his. Ajay tries to stab down at him but he twists and drops Ajay to the mat as well.

Oh, and his ground game is strong, Ajay has time to think as Pagan almost instantly locks him into an arm bar, leg across his neck, bending his elbow past it’s natural range of motion. Ajay’s teeth are bared and he considers sinking them into the skin of his calf, but figures this would probably disqualify him. In any case, he’s not done yet. He plants his feet and shoves up and backwards hard, driving with his own legs and forcing Pagan’s leg back and pinning it behind his shoulders.

Ajay can hear Pagan’s audible sigh of bored annoyance as he shifts his other knee for leverage and increases the pressure on Ajay’s elbow to twice, and then three times as much when Ajay still doesn’t tap out. Tears are running from his eyes from the pain, but with Pagan’s leg off of his neck he can twist hard to his right and then work his other arm around and…

...God, Pagan is going to actually dislocate his elbow if he doesn’t tap out, the pain increases suddenly to something hot and unreal and he can feel tendons and ligaments stretched to their maximum, ready to tear, and he’s going to do it, he can feel Pagan’s muscles bunch for it…

“That’s enough,” the Commander says, and Pagan immediately releases him and rolls off of him and away. The cessation of that pain has him lying there limp, and then the anger hits and he slams his other fist down on the mat in frustration. Pagan is standing over him again, eyeing him critically, arms crossed.

He’s not even sweating.

“Well, Ajay, it’s been fun. I will say, you’ve got a pair, I’ll give you that. And you’re every bit as stubborn as she was.” He pauses then, and his eyes are warm and sparkling for just a moment.

“Look me up after this war is over, dear boy. I’ll be in Kyrat, up on my mountain at the top of the world. The views are awesome, and I’ll tell you anything about Ishwari you want to know. I’ll tell you _everything._ ”

He runs his eyes over Ajay again, and Ajay swears that there’s a little more than just warmth in his eyes…that look is a little heated. Jesus.

“Ta, for now,” he says, and saunters off. Off and out of Ajay’s life.

But before he can get too far, the Commander barks, with a little hard humor, “Where do you think you’re going, Min? I hope it’s to get your ass down to Services for your new room assignment. You too, Ghale.” He smiles a little.

“I think you two are going to do just fine.”

\----------------------------------


	2. Maelstrom

Things are not just fine. 

Ajay comes back from dinner alone since Pagan didn’t show up like he was supposed to, back to their new shared room. 

Which contains Pagan. Lounging on the bed. 

_The_ bed, as in singular. 

He’s lying on his back and leaning against the bulkhead that the bed is pushed up against, playing on his phone, socked feet hanging off the end of it. 

“No,” Ajay says, faintly horrified. “No, absolutely not. Surely not.” 

Pagan cranes his head a little to peer at Ajay through his ludicrous shock of blond hair. 

“If you have issues, you might want to take it up with that commander fellow. I keep telling them that all of this is an awful, terrible idea from start to finish, but no one listens to me. Perhaps you’ll have better luck.” He goes back to whatever he’s doing on his phone, free arm tucked under his head. At least he’s wearing his actual clothes from earlier and not just those pink shorts or something else equally ridiculous. 

They’re the only pilot team that has to bunk together. They’re the only pilot team with all of those extra Psych assignments. And they have one bed in their quarters.

They are going to catch so much hell.

Pagan, of course, seems completely unconcerned, and in fact has let his phone drop to his chest and has both hands folded over his stomach and his eyes closed, like he intends to take a nap. At least he was considerate enough to leave plenty of space.

Ajay stands in the middle of the room and sighs. 

\-----------------------------------

Okay, so it wasn’t as bad as he was afraid it would be. The bed is bigger than the regulation singles and they have maybe a hand span’s worth of space between them so they don’t actually have to be touching. Pagan is warm and smells nice and keeps himself folded neatly against the wall to give them as much room as possible, arms tucked around himself. Although there was one point that he half woke to a hand on his back and one small stroking movement before it retreated, gone before he could wake up enough to say anything. He may have only dreamed it.

Pagan swears that he doesn’t sleep much or well and that seems to be true as he’s gone in the morning before Ajay wakes up. All the better. No complaints there. 

Ajay checks their schedule: breakfast, and then Psych at nine. Pagan’s not in the mess hall when he walks in, like he’s supposed to be, but Ajay goes over and introduces himself to his new Kyrati crewmembers and techs and sits at their table; his now as well, he supposes. They’re a rowdy but good-natured lot...until someone breaks out a bottle of vodka and they start pouring out shots under the table. Ajay looks at his watch. It’s 8:30 am. Good god. Hopefully they all sober up before they lay a finger on that Jaeger. 

As soon as he finishes his eggs and toast, a luxury, he excuses himself from their company and heads up to the psych level.

Pagan’s already there, reading a book on his phone with legs primly crossed at the knee, immaculate in a white silk shirt and rose colored trousers. Ajay rolls his eyes, wishes he’d just wear coveralls and a fucking t-shirt like everybody else. It’s frankly embarrassing, how obscene he manages to make his throat and chest look by having the top two buttons of his shirt undone. When he’s looking down like this, Ajay can see how perfectly applied his eyeliner is. Ugh. 

It hasn’t been twenty-four hours since they’ve met, they haven’t even Drifted yet, and he’s already starting to hate this guy a little. He tries to shove that feeling down because it’s not really fair to him, he hasn’t done anything besides exist in an arrogantly weird fashion…but you can’t keep secrets in the Drift. The only thing you can do is make an effort not to think about them, but if your partner goes snooping at all they’re going to see everything.

Pagan strikes him as a snooper.

When the Psych calls them back, they have two chairs set up for them, jammed right together. 

“All right, Command may have briefed the two of you on this already, but we’ve come up with a special procedure for this team, and that’s why we’re doing all of the initial neural linkage in here instead of in the actual Jaeger. This way, the two of you can go down as many R.A.B.I.T. holes as you like without taking out half the bay. All right, sit down. Oh, we’re also going to have you do skin-to-skin contact the first few sessions as well, it sometimes helps both with establishing the neural handshake and feeling a bit more grounded.”

“Skin-to...are you kidding me?” says Ajay flatly. Command seems eager to humiliate him as much as possible, and of course Pagan laughs at his discomfort, low and mean.

“You, knock it off,” she says to Pagan. “Forearms, Ghale, I want you to put your forearms together, so stop freaking out. I swear...anyway, _sit down_ and we’ll get started.” Ajay unzips his coverall and pulls his left arm out of its sleeve, and Pagan rolls his right sleeve up above his elbow. She makes them sit there with their arms pressed together while she attaches the Pons helmets, bitching about Pagan’s non-regulation hair being in the way. 

“Jealous much?” he mutters and then completely ignores her and goes back to his book. 

“Min, put the damn phone away. Okay, I’m going to power your helmets up and try to establish a link, so just close your eyes and try to relax and clear your minds.”

The first touch of their minds is like stepping into a maelstrom. Ajay jerks back out of their fledgling link with a start. 

“What the hell was that?” he says, a little shaky. That was like _nothing_ he’d ever felt from anybody else at the Academy. 

Pagan rolls his eyes. 

“Jesus Christ boy, it was just my mind. You touched my mind a little. This is supposed to be your area of expertise, after all,” he says, idly picking at a fingernail. “Although I’ll be the first to admit, it is a bit chaotic in there from time to time, I suppose.” 

“You _think?_ Actually, how _do_ you think? That was…” 

“Insane? Bizarre? Mentally ill? Deranged? Unhinged?” Pagan laughs his dark laugh. “Heard them all before, my boy, heard them all before.”

He drops his voice and whispers to Ajay but it’s not nearly quiet enough. 

“Admittedly, this might be easier with the cocaine…” 

The Psych overhears him and whips her head around. 

“Min, you better be joking about that. Do we need to start testing for _illegal substances_ in this program?”

“Woman, you can’t drug test me! I’m a foreign dignitary with diplomatic immunity.” He waves her off imperiously, and the Psych just sniffs in disapproval. Let the officers deal with it, she thinks, if he’s even serious.

Ajay narrows his own eyes. “What’s that got to do with it?”

Pagan glances over his shoulder at the Psych. 

“Well, hypothetically, since cocaine is a stimulant and stimulants can help increase focus in the frontal lobe, the coke could, in theory, decrease the number of rampaging thoughts in my mind at any given time. All theoretical, of course.”

“Of course,” she says, dry and hard. It’s Ajay’s turn to roll his eyes. They’re trying to link him to a madman.

“Well!” the Psych claps her hands, startling both of them. “Let’s try that again, shall we?”

The second time Ajay dips in, it’s not so disorienting, but it still feels like he’ll lose himself if he’s not careful. Pagan’s mind is just…overwhelming, all light and heat and like being buffeted by the hot wind of his thoughts. Like warm sunlight on his skin that could scorch in a moment, if the mood took him. 

_Watch yourself,_ he thinks to himself, and feels surprise from Pagan when he hears Ajay. 

_Tread carefully,_ is all Pagan thinks back. 

When he looks up, he can see Pagan now, the way that you see each other in the Drift. He looks much like he does in the outside world, except sort of…softer and gold-ish. Also naked; they both are, you always are in here, and Ajay is making a studious attempt to not look down. For once Pagan is decently respectful and keeps his eyes locked on Ajay’s as well. Their forearms are touching in here too, and Ajay keeps them pressed together, to keep them stabilized. 

They stay that way for awhile, just getting accustomed to the sensation of there being someone else in here, and resisting Pagan’s unconscious attempts to push him out. He doesn’t mean to, he can tell, but while Ajay doesn’t particularly trust the guy Pagan really doesn’t trust him, doesn’t trust anybody, he sees, looking a little closer. Apparently he’s gotten as far in the link with him as anybody has yet, which is kind of sad. A flare of bright anger at that, and Pagan almost shoves him out then. 

_Calm down. Easy. Sorry about that. Steady, steady._

“Sometimes, it helps your focus if you talk out loud,” Ajay says. “That’s why Jaeger pilots usually call out the commands…it helps if you’re new. And we’re both pretty new at this.”

“You two are doing great,” the Psych says from behind them, observing the monitors. “Keep the link going as long as you’re able. Ask each other questions, look at some memories together, that kind of thing. Command thinks you might have some in common to sync up.”

“Ah, small talk! My favorite!” That urbane voice absolutely dripping sarcasm. “So Ajay, what made you want to join the military? The desire for fame, glory? Meeting new and interesting people and then killing them? Getting to tear shit up, perhaps?”

This shouldn’t be a sore spot, it really shouldn’t, but it’s Pagan and he’s exotic and cultured and practically oozes money…and he grew up with nothing. 

“The sign-on bonus,” he grits out a little, and tries to tamp down that emotional response in the link. Then, because he can’t help but rub it in a little, “I needed to help Mom with the bills. She needed that money. You weren’t around, after all.”

And god, it’s like poking an open wound. Why did he say that? It’s all _grief grief love sorrow_ buffeting him, and then directly after, his hot anger, searing. 

“No, I wasn’t,” Pagan grinds out, and then he catches a thought from Ajay: _no, wasn’t your fault, my fault_ and his thoughts about the drugs, the gangs, Ishwari having to work doubles to bail him out and pay his court costs. Pagan’s anger spikes to raw fury when he sees that, Ishwari’s exhaustion and sadness and frustration, Ajay being a smartmouth punk to her.

Ajay feels that fury aimed at him and that, mixed with his disappointment and grief and regret makes his own anger boil over. 

“You little fucking rich bitch, you don’t know shit-all about it!” Ajay bellows, startling the Psych behind them, finally pushed to the limit of his temper. “You weren’t there, you didn’t grow up like me, with _nothing_ , you were over in Kyrat living high on the fucking hog while we scrabbled in the _dirt,_ you poncy fuckwad!”

“Oh, so that’s how it was, was it?!” Pagan roars back. His voice drops back down to a hard and hissing snarl. “I’ll show you, _I’ll show you_ how it was, you little shit, since you seem so determined to wallow in your own _fucking_ self pity…” and deepens the link, dragging Ajay down with him, probably without even meaning to.

_Eleven years old and the first year at the fancy London boarding school his father sent him away to, back when he was just Gang (and oh how he had loathed that name), and the son of a middling Hong Kong Triad drug lord wasn’t treated well among the British gentry, especially not a halfbreed. They screamed that at him, halfbreed, and worse, even though he was tall and strong for his age and already had a reputation for meanness, for rage. But there was nothing he could do when five or six of them would catch him in the showers…_

_Later, fifteen and home on holidays and seeing his own mother crumbling, unable to stand up to Gang’s emotional torture, his little sister cowed by the same treatment, and that was the year he stopped referring to him as his father…_

Ajay, reeling from that pain, fires back. Pagan’s determined to sharpen his memories and fling them at him like weapons, trying to hurt, draw blood…fine. He can do that too. God, can he _ever._

_Ten years old, delivering papers and cutting grass and doing whatever he can to help his mom with the bills, there never being quite enough food in their tiny but immaculately clean apartment. Ishwari always assuring him that no, of course she wasn’t hungry, she had already eaten, go ahead and have the last piece of roti. He could hear the lie, but he was so hungry he was wobbly with it…_

Pagan snarls and bares his teeth at the thought of Ishwari having to go hungry. He’d had no idea…

He focuses that rage and fires back.

_Seventeen and working for Gang because he had no choice about it, a Kowloon City deal gone tits up and a rival Triad gangster aiming for his liver, bright pain from the knife raking, slicing across his ribs. Gang had beat him for it when he got home, dizzy with blood loss, and he vowed never again. Later that same year, a night of blood and horror when Gang snapped and murdered his mother in a fit of insane rage. And he had driven his knife into Gang’s ear with a sharp twist, the killing blow perfectly executed just like Gang taught him, screaming the entire time. Grabbing his sister Yuma’s hand, her only fifteen, and running for it, disappearing into Hong Kong’s dark streets, knowing half the city would be after them. He took the name Pagan from that day on, the king of patricide and blood._

Ajay rocks back a little like Pagan physically slapped him in the face, but doesn’t break their connection, oh no. Won’t give him the satisfaction.

_Ishwari, lying in that hospital bed, so thin that it looked like the blankets were too heavy on her bones, like a bundle of sticks, all the machines beeping. Him not knowing what to do. So, so many regrets. He had some money saved back from that sign-on bonus and that’s what he used to cremate her, get her the decency of a nice urn instead of a cardboard box..._

Rage, rage and stabbing grief as Pagan flings his own memories of Ishwari at him, for all that it will wound him too, their shared mindspace a conflagration of hot fire and pain.

_Mohan Ghale, strutting and proud, bragging about marrying Ishwari when she was a child, a twelve year old child, the Tarun Matara, and then shutting her up in that old house at the top of the mountain all alone. Pagan meeting her in Kyrat when he was twenty and she was eighteen, her pregnant with Ajay, and Mohan had shoved him into a wall and snarled in his face for smiling at her and shaking her hand. His sorrow at her being so young and intelligent and beautiful and chained to that oaf that only wanted to keep her caged, controlled, the way Gang had wanted him caged. For all of Mohan’s domineering presence, he couldn’t be everywhere at once, and they became friends of a sort. Her only friend. Then he took the throne by bloody force, killing the inbred third cousin of the old king and thwarting Mohan’s plans for a brutal theocracy. A year later, Ishwari at the Palace doors with a tiny Ajay, and she told him the whole story of how Mohan was growing more brutal, more insane by the day, and when he told her to go and spy on the King she had jumped at the chance to get away from him. He had embraced her right there on the front steps, as dangerous as it was…_

They’re both getting lost in this memory, Ajay can feel them both chasing this rabbit, losing themselves in it, but he wants to _see,_ he didn’t know about any of this stuff. Mom never told him. Never knew who his dad was, never knew about Pagan, or Kyrat, or _anything._

_It had happened so fast between them, they didn’t mean to, but Pagan treated her like his equal, his best friend, his queen, and before they quite realized what was happening their mouths were on each other and it felt like liquid fire in his stomach and her hands were in his hair and his hands were on her hips and they made Lakshmana that very first time, and she was born almost a year to the day after Ajay. They were both young, so young then, the whole world laid out in front of them. So in love, warm and steady and love everywhere, and they’d dreamed such big dreams, in that big bed with little Ajay curled against his legs fast asleep (Bhagan, always Bhagan, he said his name the Kyrati way like Ishwari said it, but never ever Papa), his hand stroking his little back and his other hand on Ishwari’s belly, feeling that swelling of new life there. His beautiful daughter. They’d talked about their dreams for the future, for a free and equal nation for their children, for all the children. Peace, after so much war. And then…and then the death of all their dreams…_

Pagan has a hold of him in that shared mindspace and is pulling him out of that memory, body to body, and the maelstrom has calmed to a warm gold. 

_Easy, easy, my boy, you don’t want to go any further…I can’t go any further…_ with a throb of sorrow. _Not today._ Pagan holds him, and it should be weird because they’re naked, but it’s not. Pagan holds him like he’s something precious, the way he can’t in the other world. 

_Bhagan, Bhagan…_ Ajay’s stuck on that name, it’s triggering a memory and he’s trying to get at it, his own arms around Pagan, exhausted from trying to hurt him. No more. Never again. 

One of his earliest memories, blurry and fragmented and nearly lost with time, but he has it now: _being held in close in warm arms by someone much taller than his mother, a giddy height. The gentlest rasp of stubble against his own small face, the smell of aftershave. Bhagan._ Pagan matches it with his own sharper, clearer memory, the mirror image of Ajay’s, holding and held. 

_I didn’t recognize you when I first saw you again. I saw Ishwari in you, but I couldn’t find that little boy that I knew and loved…I’m so sorry I got angry and tried to hurt you…_

_I’m sorry too, that I lost my temper. But I’m not your son,_ Ajay thinks, _I’m not your son and I’m not her. I can’t be._

_I know, Ajay, I know. You are still dear to me, all the same._

_You loved her so much,_ and as Ajay thinks it he can feel it in Pagan even after all this time, all those miles between them, his love for Ishwari like a hot pool of longing. _You loved all three of us._

_Yes._

Ajay doesn’t know what happened to his little sister, but it’s obvious that it was something terrible that Pagan’s not ready to show him. 

In the real world, his eyes still closed, still linked with Pagan, Ajay starts to cry. For Mom, for Pagan, for Lakshmana, for himself. For what could have been. 

_Easy my boy, easy._ Pagan holding him close, pouring warm gold light into him. _Fate is always a fucking fickle mistress, but you and I are still here, and I intend to keep it that way._

 

\-------------------------------------

 

“My report should be hitting your inbox now,” the Psych says, on the phone with the division Commander as requested after Ghale and Min’s session. 

“I’ll read it thoroughly this evening, but I want your initial impressions.”

“Volatile, sir, extremely volatile. Those two…I barely had them linked before they were bellowing at each other. ‘Little shit’ and ‘poncy fuckwad’ were two terms used, sir. Not like oil and water, but like gasoline and gasoline.”

She can all but hear his wince over the line. “I thought Ghale was supposed to be stable?” 

“Oh, he is, incredibly so…but Min is good at finding a tender spot, and we all have them, sir, and pushing that button _just right._ You know that the first link we had him in ended with a fistfight in my office. But I was shocked that even though they were fighting with each other like that they were going deeper in the Drift the entire time, and then Min took them _way_ down deep. At least, way deep for new pilots. I’ve never seen that before. And then they chased some rabbits and by the end of it they were as calm and close as a team who have been doing this for six months. It was remarkable.”

“A success then, is what you’re saying.”

“Oh yes. I say give them a couple more weeks or so to work out whatever trauma Min has in there and let them run some sims in the Jaeger and then turn them loose on the Kaiju.”

 

\----------------------------------------


	3. A Deep Well

\----------------------------------------

 

The next day is easier, and the link is almost like falling into each other. They decide together to only look at pleasant memories, but even that is a little tainted. 

It’s still good, though. 

Pagan shows Ajay Hong Kong, or at least the Hong Kong of his youth; the amazing sight of Kowloon City in the rain, all cramped and steamy and neon-lit, shining towers in the distance like something from a sci-fi movie. 

_None of this exists anymore,_ Pagan tells him, just a little rueful about it. _It was beautiful and awful at the same time, but it was like no place else on Earth._

_Now you show me a place._

Ajay shows him San Francisco, which Pagan has never seen in person; the hilly streets and green trees and the sparkling bay with the big bridge that he’d seen and loved during a school trip as a teenager. 

They walk those streets together, and Ajay has to tell him, _After K-Day, none of this exists anymore either. Only in memories._

 _That’s why I had the Honey Badger commissioned,_ Pagan responds, and shows him a dizzying succession of fragrant parks and snow-capped peaks, ancient temples and glittering skyscrapers, green valleys filled with flowers. The way the sun looks as it sets on those giant mountains over his home, the Royal Palace at the top of the world. Places he loves and wants to keep safe and Ajay wants to keep them safe as well, wants them to be his places too. He’s never really had one. He shows Pagan him and Ishwari moving around from cheap apartment to cheap apartment in bad neighborhoods, crashing on friends’ shitty couches, and then the hard sterile dorms of military service. 

Pagan gives him the prettiest memories he has, holds them out freely for Ajay to hold close as well. 

_We’ll learn to pilot that Jaeger, you and I, and we’ll keep it all safe, together._

Within a week Ajay wonders how he ever thought that he could hate this guy.

 

\------------------------------------------

 

Well, okay, maybe Ajay can see how he can totally hate this guy.

He had woken up alone again, no Pagan in their quarters, no Pagan in the mess hall for breakfast. Not that unusual, but Ajay finds out where he’s been and what he’s been up to when he heads to Psych and walks in the waiting room and catches Pagan with a tiny baggie, doing bumps off of his fucking ID card. 

Ajay hisses, “Jesus _Christ,_ what the fuck is _wrong_ with you?” He wants to bellow this in Pagan’s face, but he also doesn’t want this whole floor to hear the resulting scuffle. 

“An experiment, a grand experiment, my boy!” he says, strident and entirely too loud. He is absolutely high as a fucking kite, pupils blown so wide that there’s only a small ring of dark brown in his eyes. God. They have about two minutes until their appointment, until someone else _will_ show up in this room to get them. 

Ajay manages to get the card and the baggie away from him without spillage and grabs Pagan’s arm and uses the inside of his sleeve to wipe the card clean while Pagan paws at his head gently for some reason. He gets the baggie sealed, tosses the card in his lap, and then reaches and jams the coke deep in his front pants pocket and Pagan _giggles_ at him, fuck. 

“Why Ajay, I didn’t know you cared...” 

Ajay cuts him off. “No way am I getting caught with your shit. Touch it and I’ll beat the fuck out of you.” 

They are so dead. 

“Fine, fine...I only wanted to see if it would help me in the focus department.” He pauses and runs a hand through his hair, totally disarraying it. 

“You realize it’s going to fuck with my head too, when we link,” Ajay growls. Pagan’s wearing navy trousers today, of course he fucking is, and Ajay is checking him carefully for white marks. Dusts his knee off.

“Relax, it’ll wear off in twenty minutes or so,” Pagan says grandly, not really cooperating with Ajay’s attempts to use his fingers to comb his hair back to tidiness and roll his sleeve back up.

“Psych’s gonna see that your brainwaves are all fucked. You think about that?” Ajay says, straightening his collar and giving him a final dust off. When he was fixing his shirt his thumb had accidentally brushed the hollow of Pagan’s throat and when he did, he could feel Pagan swallow against his fingers. He studiously buries that just as deeply as it will go, refusing to think about it.

“Diplomatic immunity!” is all he says. God. Ajay checks his watch. 9:01. Whew. 

 

The Psych gives Pagan serious side eye when Pagan flops into his chair, and his non-reactive pupils are really, really fucking obvious in this bright room. She sighs. 

“Ghale, if I hook the two of you up while he’s...like this, you’re going to experience whatever it is he’s on.” 

“I...it’s okay, I know what it is. He’ll be okay in a little while. I’ll be fine. We’ll be fine.” He wants to hide in mortification when Pagan giggles again. The Psych hooks them up without further comment.

Pagan meets him eagerly in the Drift, and he’s right. He is much more focused, but it feels all strange and sharp and _unpleasant_ in a way he can’t really put his finger on, just hard light and an edge of sexual arousal, a little playful, a little giddy but it’s like a knife too. 

No, this is not going to work at all. 

A sigh. _I was afraid of that. I’m sorry, dear boy. I just didn’t want to get in that Jaeger and not be able to handle the task load._

_It’s okay, it won’t last long, like you said. You can’t coke yourself up every time we drop into combat either. We’ll figure it out._

The crash was even worse though. Ugh. He’d forgotten what a shitty feeling this was. 

Ajay holds him close while the maelstrom of his thoughts and emotions closes in on them again, warm and gold but dulled and his mind keeps trying to go to dark corners, to things he regrets, to fire and blood that Ajay’s not ready to see yet. 

_Easy, easy. Wait, I have an idea._

In a flash of intuition and instinct Ajay looks carefully at Pagan in the Drift and visualizes Pagan’s mind, his brain and its structures. He makes the picture as clear and concrete as he can and locates that part of the frontal lobe that’s responsible for focus and pleasure and reward, and then carefully reaches out with his fingers and brushes it.

_Ajay, what are y…_

White hot detonation, as that part of Pagan’s brain lights up with the euphoric force of at least three orgasms and it rips a humiliating grunting moan out of Pagan and has him very close to losing consciousness. 

“Oh, shit…” Ajay says, shuddering with the backlash himself just as the Psych behind them yells, “Ghale, what did you _do_ to him?” 

She carefully examines the scan. 

“Never mind...I know exactly what you did to him. Gentle, Ghale, _gentle._ His vitals are going haywire. Do that again and you’re likely to send him into arrest. Min, just breathe, it’ll pass.”

“Bloody fucking hell...” Pagan gasps out, hunched over. Ajay feels his groaning relief in their shared mindspace that he didn’t just come right in his fucking pants. 

She sighs. 

“This sort of thing is not something we generally encourage in Jaeger pilot teams. Not because of the sexual effects, but because it’s an advanced Psych technique. You have to be _careful._ Sometimes we use it therapeutically for people who don’t respond to medication... _at a much lower level,_ Ghale. We also get patient consent first,” she says, an edge to her voice. 

“I don’t know how you knew how to do it, but I know why you did it, and I agree that it could help to stimulate that area of the brain if Min is having focus problems. It’s fairly common for people who have been through trauma to have these issues,” Pagan throws her a scathing glance, “and your aim was spot-on...just dial it back about twelve notches, please, for the love of God. And _ask_ before you just start prodding each other’s brains.” 

She sighs again, seemingly put out with the both of them: Pagan still hunched and trying to breathe steadily, face flushed and embarrassed as hell. Ajay, looking worried and guilty and also flushed and embarrassed as hell. 

“I think that’s enough for today.”

 

\----------------------------------------

 

The next morning, they’re right back in the Pons helmets again and the Psych gives them what she thinks of as The Speech. 

“I know that since the first session the two of you have been sticking to sharing pleasant memories, which is good. But now that you’re linking easily, I want you to explore some darker ones, maybe even some traumatic ones. And you’re not going to want to...but eventually, the two of you as a team are going to have to. Learn everything about each other now, go looking in all the dark corners, the fears, the pain, the regrets. Deal with it now, take away the potential for those memories to shock and hurt, here where it’s safe.”

The Psych smiles at them, a little ruefully.

“After all, it’s rarely happy memories that a pilot accidentally gets blindsided with, it’s getting lost in the bad ones that causes them to de-sync with their partner and the Jaeger. It’s the traumatic stuff that gets the two of them killed. Look at them together and work out those emotions in here.” Her expression turns severe. 

“And _no drugs._ I mean it, Min,” she says, scowling.

“Yes ma’am, lesson learnt,” Pagan responds cheekily. Then his own expression sobers a bit.

“In any case, that...erm, that thing that Ajay did was much more effective in that regard,” he says, with a touch of obvious embarrassment.

“Well, you and Ajay might want to practice that in here as well, if you intend to use it during your piloting sessions.”

Their twin looks of shocked offense might have been funny, in different circumstances. She holds up her hands for peace, reigns in a chuckle.

“That’s fine, if you’re embarrassed. I can turn my back if it bothers you to be watched.”

Pagan hisses at her like a scalded cat, while Ajay looks like he wants to melt through the chair and into the floor, out of sight.

With that, she reaches out and jauntily flicks on the power to the Pons system.

 

\----------------------------------------

 

Ajay doesn’t know if it’s becoming a Pavlovian response or what, but when she flips that switch on they’re linking so quickly and strongly now that it would be a fight to _keep_ from falling into each other, instead of the other way.

They’re bonded tightly but he can sense Pagan backing away from him a little, his feelings an agitated gold swirl. Radiating distress at him. Ajay himself just feels dull and leaden, just wants this out of the way.

_Since you’re freaking out, I can go first._

It’s easy to go deep now, where you have to go in order to look at things like this, but he doesn’t pull them in quite as deep as Pagan did.

 _School wasn’t easy for him, never came easy. He liked math, did well enough in other things too, but it was just him and Mom, just the two of them, and they always had to move around. They’d move from cheap little apartment to cheap little apartment, near wherever she could get work, and Ajay had to change schools too. And unlike the other brown kids, he didn’t have other brown kids to stick with. He was like Pagan in that one way; too white for one group, too brown for the other, not fitting anywhere._

_He knew nothing about Kyrat, Mom refused to talk about any of that stuff. He was so angry that she wouldn’t...but he knows why now. So much pain there. So much pain in her, and like a selfish stupid kid he could only think about himself, his own problems. He had no idea, what real pain looked like. Is just now learning._

_Easy pickings. Easy mark, for the gangs. He didn’t even realize, until the very end, that the kids he eventually fell in with...not even they wanted him._

_They were more like him though; kids with no dads, dead or in jail or just missing, moms who weren’t around, either working long hours or done up on drugs themselves, never quite enough food in the house...so they took what they needed, whatever they wanted, petty shoplifting, and said fuck you. Cigarettes and pot at first, and then worse and worse. He’d liked the cocaine, nice drug, even though it was a rich white kid kind of drug, but the heroin had felt like coming home, fuzzy and warm and like everything he’d ever wanted._

_Sell one kind to buy the other; Pagan understands that too. But he wasn’t as smart as Pagan, because he was constantly in and out of juvie, and then in and out of county jail...constantly before judges for shit like a hotwired car, being busted for possession, for stealing chips and sodas, for jaywalking, for being a dark-skinned kid in a hoodie, for fucking existing. Ishwari there, every time. More and more disappointment, every time._

_And then that stupid robbery...he was just supposed to be the lookout. He never dreamed that those idiots would bring a fucking gun. That was for hardcore gangbangers, not guys like them. Hell, the only thing he carried was a box cutter, and that was only because he’d gotten jumped bad a few months before._

_When he complained, they were so quick to say oh, it’s not loaded, oh, it’s just to scare the guy, stop being such a pussy AJ, c’mon man. And then that moment of blood and horror and the stink of cordite and his own fear. That was his breaking point. He told his public defender that, and stood before that judge on the second worst day of his life, and swore never again, he’d never be duped like that again, and he ratted out every single one of those motherfuckers. Not out of fear, but because it was exactly what they deserved. He told the judge that, too, clean and sober for the first time in a long time. Miraculously, they let him off with credit for time served, and a year’s worth of probation that he got to do away from possible retaliation because he joined the Army the next fucking day, and grew the hell up. Set up a savings account and dumped everything in there for Mom, showed her how to get to it when he was on leave after Basic. Tried to make up for some of the shit he put her through._

Pagan intrudes then.

 _This is all fascinating stuff my boy,_ his tone indicating anything but. _However, if I see this while we’re linked it’s hardly going to throw me for a loop. And is that not why we’re here? I see that you were afraid, that this was a hard day for you and all...but you weren’t hurt by it. Wounded. Rended. So stop fucking around, take us deeper, and show me your mother dying._

Every time he starts to like Pagan, he manages to do something to make Ajay hate him all over again, and of course he hears it. 

_Jesus boy, if you hate me now..._ more of that distress from him. 

In aggravation, he gives Pagan what he wants. Pulls him in deep, so he can hurt with him, if that’s what he wants so fucking much.

_She’s thin, so thin, painfully so; such a small woman. She’d seemed so much bigger when she was well, had filled whole rooms in his childish memory. Almost thirty, and he really had felt like a helpless child again, no idea how to deal with this, what to do. Not long now, the doctors had said. ‘Ajay, Ajay,’ she’d whispered,_ and Pagan’s throb of pain twines with his own, and he puts his arms around him in this place. He’s an ass, but he’s nice when it matters. When it really hurts. He puts his around Pagan too, rubs his back, a small gold comfort. 

_‘I only ask one thing of you, my son...please, take me back to Kyrat, to Lakshmana.’ He’d told her that he would, anything, anything she’d wanted...but it would take him a little bit, just a little while, because they were sending him to Hong Kong on some kind of special assignment. She’d perked up just a bit then, a little interest coming back into her eyes. ‘Hong Kong?’ she’d said, and looked like she wanted to say something else, but didn’t._ He hadn’t known at the time what either of those two things meant.

 _She thought I might be here,_ Pagan thinks. _But I’m not the same man she knew, that she loved._

And then Pagan is there beside her, moving around the bed to sit in the chair. Touching her face, taking her hand. 

Ajay blinks.

He...wasn’t there that day, and can’t be walking around in this memory because he’s still holding Ajay. And yet...

Ajay stands there and watches him brush her hair back, stroking her cheek. 

_Sorrow, love, regret..._ he understands then. Pagan’s _imagining_ himself here, right in the middle of Ajay’s memory, and he does it so strongly and well that it confused him for a few seconds. You can’t...people can’t do that in here, the techs said so. It’s hard enough just sharing memories. That's what they say, except that it’s not; not for them, anyway. Never was hard. 

Guess that doesn’t mean a damn thing to Pagan, what you supposedly can and can’t do in here. As usual, he just does whatever the fuck he wants. He can’t help but admire him for it, a bit.

Peace now, a peacefulness in their gold space; at least a little. 

Pagan imagines himself sitting there with her, just holding her hand, stroking her thin hair with his other hand and it breaks Ajay’s heart to see it. What he would have done, if he could have been here. When he bends and whispers in her ear about how he’s here now, and that it’s going to be okay, and how much he loves her and how beautiful she is, Ajay butts his head against his and nuzzles at him a little, holds him a bit tighter.

Pagan twists in his arms to look at him, his eyes dark and sad and gold-tinged, and Ajay feels…a tiny twinge of fear.

Ajay realizes it then: this isn’t the worst of the pain that's inside Pagan. This…this isn’t even the tip of the iceberg, of what’s in him.

The sadness he sees in Pagan’s eyes isn’t for Ishwari, or himself; it’s for _Ajay._

Pagan gently grasps the back of Ajay’s head, pulls him in so their foreheads are touching.

_Darling boy, I know you think of me as an asshole, a pompous prick, and that’s all true. But I really am sorry for this. Really, truly sorry. I hope you can forgive me._

And suddenly drags him down and down, and _down,_ into the deep well of his mind.

 

\----------------------------------------


	4. Break

Ajay is a little afraid. It’s dark and quiet down here, like being underwater, or in a cave with only a little gold light in the velvety black.

Pagan dragged him down so deeply into his mind that he can’t even _see_ him anymore, but he can hear his thoughts like whispers. It hits him then; he’s in so deep that he is Pagan, in a way, and he’s suddenly beyond just afraid; he’s terrified of losing his way back.

 _I came back from here. You can too,_ like a caress against the back of his neck. _I’m here with you._

But when Ajay looks down, his hands aren’t his hands. They don’t look gold and they aren’t his. 

_They’re mine._

And they’re covered with blood. Ajay looks down further, past his hands. He’s kneeling on the floor, a polished wooden floor, and in front of him…

“Oh no,” he murmurs, in Pagan’s voice. Pagan’s voice, with twenty-five years shaved off of it. “Oh no, oh no, no no no…”

His little sister, his mother’s tiny daughter.

Pagan’s baby girl.

The howl that comes out of Pagan’s throat doesn’t sound _human,_ and Ajay tries to turn his mind away.

 _No, boy. Look, look until it can’t hurt you anymore._

That rough bellow is choked off abruptly, because it feels like ice water is rushing into his chest, filling him and freezing hard up in his throat, and he gasps, unable to make any other sound. 

Lacking anything else, he carefully removes his own shirt and wraps it around Lakshmana’s tiny body, cradles her, her perfect little face against his shoulder. This way, he can almost pretend she is a swaddled infant again, not the sturdy toddler she was just a few hours ago. The silk of his shirt is thick, and doubled over, but the red is already starting to bloom through in places.

Ishwari is in the doorway now, through, dropping beside him, screaming, wild-eyed like a terrified animal.

A distant part of Ajay is amazed at how young she is, how young both of them are. Way younger than he is now. He was more right than he knew earlier; he had no concept of what real pain was, what it could feel like. This feels like blood gushing from invisible wounds, just shy of panic, like dying, like the kind of pain that can _break._

 _I was never the same, after. Neither of us were._ Pagan’s ghostly whisper holds infinite sadness.

Pagan clutches the baby to his chest with one arm, the muscles all knotted hard in distress, his other arm wrapped around Ishwari, who has screamed herself hoarse and is still crying pitifully, and that little choking sound feeds his panic, he can feel them coming apart at the seams and he has to hold his little family together, he has to hold them together before he can even think of finding Mohan and making him _bleed and pay and pay_ …but Ajay, where is Ajay? He needs to hold him too, his little boy, hold them all together before they fly apart, frantic, Ajay, _Ajay_ …

But before he can see himself, Pagan’s memory just…tears apart, drifts apart like smoke. Just _gone._

 _Broken_ …Pagan whispers.

There’s big blank spaces, holes all through his memories, where his conscious brain stopped recording under this onslaught. 

The next thing that Ajay sees is his hands, Pagan’s hands holding the tiny wrapped bundle again, but now he’s wearing his nicest suit and Ishwari is holding his arm, so numb he can see it but not feel her hand there. They’re walking together towards the funeral pyre. His mind is everywhere and whirling and the pain in his chest is a dull pressure, locked there by that ice. 

A fleeting thought bubbles up for a moment, the sudden deep desire to just keep walking, right into the flames. 

Walk with her into the dark himself, so she won’t be frightened, won’t have to go alone. 

Papa’s here. 

Their ashes mingling, everything gone to dust. 

Ishwari’s hand on his arm tugs him to a stop, like maybe she sensed his thoughts…and then his mind is gone again, blank, blank.

Ajay doesn’t know it, but tears are running down his face and dripping off his chin there in the Psych’s office, and his physical hand reaches for Pagan’s, clamping down.

When Pagan’s memory kicks in again, he’s carrying a big stone in his hands, like a brick but much heavier, and Ajay can feel the ache in his shoulders and arms, mingling with the ache in his heart, and so cold. Cold air on his face, the drift of occasional snowflakes, but it’s nothing compared to that ice inside him, burning. His hands are burning too, the stones rough and heavy. Pagan carries them across a courtyard, those massive mountains in the background. Walking back and forth, back and forth like a machine, placing these stones, his mind a foggy abyss. His hands are starting to leave smears of blood, but they’re numb now, past pain. 

Pagan’s a little glad to see that blood, half afraid he was dead too. 

Some of his soldiers are standing around watching, but when they try to help Pagan slaps their hands away. This is something that a king does, and he is still the King. But Ishwari should be here, her and Ajay and the baby. Where is the baby? Who’s watching her? 

_You and your mother had been gone for two days already. Your father tried to take you from her and she killed him. He’d run mad, and she put him down like a rabid dog._

_But I couldn’t hold onto the threads…_

There are people talking to him but they sound like they’re coming from underwater. He’s been working for more than twenty-four hours now, hauling stone all by himself and stacking it almost robotically. Doesn’t even know why anymore, just that it has to be done. Doesn’t remember that he’s building a tomb, a shrine for his dead daughter’s ashes.

His men bring him hot tea and food, but he doesn’t want it, doesn’t know why they can’t just leave him be. And then Gary’s there, their lead tech and Pagan’s assistant, Gary’s younger self trying to get Pagan to listen to him, to _stop_ but Pagan can’t understand what he wants, underwater, it’s all under water, and so dark.

Gary and another guard grab him to try to physically restrain him…and Pagan goes _mad,_ pure panic, and his thrumming, terrified heart is Ajay’s heart and his hurt and bloody hands are Ajay’s hands and Ajay doesn’t know how much more of this he can take, as Pagan snakes a hand up to the guard’s body armor, rips the combat knife free, and plunges all six inches of it into the man’s thigh. He goes down howling as Pagan slams his elbow back into Gary’s face so hard that Ajay feels the shock of it all the way down to his fingertips. 

All of the soldiers pile onto him, and he almost gets loose again, frantic but they finally resort to grinding his head into the gravel and sitting on him. Ajay can hear a weird sound, a pitiful sound and he realizes it’s _him,_ a low groan of no, no, no over and over again, Pagan’s tears dripping into the dirt and his last semi-coherent thought is _maybe I’m the one underwater, drowning, I’m drowning_ and Ajay’s breaking with him before Pagan’s mind goes dark again.

The next time, it’s blood, blood and fire, the rifle kicking in Pagan’s hands with a chattering roar, and his bellowing, blistering rage is almost hot enough to break that ice loose in his chest.

Almost.

Ajay should be appalled, at what amounts to downright murder, as Pagan mercilessly slaughters anyone in this little village wearing even a hint of blue and yellow. They try to surrender, and Pagan cuts them down. It’s an atrocity, the stuff of war crimes. But it’s hard to even blame him, when Ajay can feel everything he feels; his blind, grieving fury, his raw terror, heart like a trapped bird, battering itself senseless. The _breaking._

These memories keep going in and out in flashes, like flickers of death and pain and probably blotting out the worst of it. But even so, his hands are killing everything in reach, the blood washing warm over them and spattering his face. 

Ajay _hates_ it, is sickened and afraid and horrified, but he understands it too, because he _is_ Pagan. 

And he can’t hate him for this. God help him, he can’t hate him when he should, when he ought to loathe him. The part that is Ajay only feels aching pity; Pagan had utterly lost his way in the dark, so lost, the loss of everything. 

Even himself.

Ajay raises his head and looks out onto a field on fire, billowing smoke obscuring the sun. He’s crouched down with the rifle across his knees, boots sinking into the churned mud, a red-brown paste of blood and dirt. His hands are bloody, white knuckles showing through where he’s clutching the gun. He tries to make himself let go but his fingers won’t unlock. 

Everything is red; the sky, the ground, the smoke rolling across the field, the bodies that surround him. Even his hair, dripping, almost in his eye. He’s exhausted, sides heaving for air that the tight body armor is not allowing him to get. 

Some of the bodies around him have red uniforms but most of them wear blue and yellow, where it’s not obscured by dirt. By offal. He lets his head drop, rests his forehead on the warm metal of the rifle, as blood drips off the ends of his hair. 

He’s surrounded by bodies, and he has no idea how he’s come to be here, what he’s even _done._

_I thought I might have been dead, too. But it didn’t matter, really…_

Pagan starts pulling them up again, back up to their shared Drift space where they are two distinct entities.

_Dearest boy, that was the worst of it. The very worst. Nothing in me can scare you now…but I never wanted to hurt you like that. I didn’t…_

_Shhh, it’s okay, it’s okay…we’re okay. It’s all right now._

Now that they’re two people again, Ajay can hold him here, stroking his gold hair, his touch rippling gold across his shoulders, putting as much _warm, calm_ as he can into their shared mindspace.

Although, if he's being totally honest with himself, he's pretty pissed at his mom for leaving Pagan like that.

_No, Ajay, no. Don't be angry about that. She did what she needed to do, to keep you safe. I never begrudged her that, not a bit. She didn't have time to say goodbye, but her letter helped put me together again._

Pagan shows him an image of it, an old, soft paper with the creases almost worn through, well-loved. 'Know that I love you, and one day we will be together again. Ishwari.'

_You waited, didn't you. You waited and waited..._

_Yes. I failed you all so terribly, it was the very least I could do, to wait. To hold on._

Ajay catches a glimpse then, of just how hard some of those years were. He understands better now why Pagan kept exuding that vague distress at him…he didn’t want Ajay to hate him; he actually cares what Ajay thinks about him. He doesn’t have anybody else, not really. And the fear that he might do irreparable harm to that, just letting him see this, _feel_ this with him. 

_I’m stronger than that,_ he thinks at Pagan. _We both are. We’re going to pilot that Jaeger, and nothing’s going to stop us. Nothing._

Although after what his fa…what Mohan did, Ajay’s not sure how Pagan can stand to even _look_ at him.

_We’re not our fathers, Ajay. Neither of us are, thank god. We're not them and we don’t have to keep making their mistakes. We can let their shitty legacies die._

Pagan sounds tired even in here, but he brushes gentle hands across Ajay’s face. 

 

\----------------------------------------

 

The Psych decides to pull them out then, and Ajay wonders how long they’ve been clutching each others’ hands out here. Not holding, but clutching, like drowning people. It’s been long enough that Ajay has to force his fingers to open. They may have left bruises on each other.

“Listen, I let you go way, way over your usual time, but I could see that you two were doing important work in there. I can’t see what you are seeing, obviously, but according to the scans I think you may be ready. I’m going to go ahead and give the tentative green light to the Commander to let you start running sims in the Jaeger.”

She rests a companionable hand on each of their shoulders, and Pagan’s so tired he doesn’t even bitch about it.

“I know that today was hard, really hard; I almost pulled you out twice because Ghale, your heart rate went over one-fifty at one point. I want you two to go down to the mess hall and get some food and something hot to drink and then take the rest of the day off, although it’s nearly dinnertime.” She smiles at them both. “Gentlemen, this means that you don’t have to come see me anymore; unless you want to, of course. If you ever want to talk about anything, either of you, separate or together, just come on in. Here’s my hours, don’t hesitate, all right?” 

She hands Ajay her card, rightly judging that he would be the more likely of the two of them to hang onto it. Dr. Rachel Hannah, and then a lot of letters after her name. Huh. She only looks a little older than Ajay, so she must be some kind of Psych prodigy or something.

“Hang on and I’ll write you an excuse as well. And Min, eat something please, Medical keeps harassing me that your weight is down a little. I think four pounds is pretty negligible personally, but I’m sick of their emails cluttering up my inbox.”

Pagan rolls his eyes.

“I shall endeavor to find something worth the trouble in that awful place,” he grumbles, and rubs his face exhaustedly.

Dr. Hannah pats his shoulder with a smile.

“Calories, rehydration, nap. Get to it, doctor’s orders.”

 

\--------------------------------------------

 

It seems like their day is just not going to be done being shitty.

Ajay went ahead and dragged Pagan down to the mess hall with him, hey, doctor’s orders, can’t argue with that. They were both feeling…a little fragile maybe, maybe a lot shell-shocked, and he figured Dr. Hannah knew what she was talking about when she said that some food and what the base refers to as coffee might help. 

And just as Ajay anticipated, at least a few of their fellow pilots feel the need to fuck with them. 

Pagan’s been here on base for awhile but he’s also strange and aloof and arrogant enough to have been mostly left alone. That fistfight in the Psych’s office also probably didn’t hurt anything. However, their training together and the room situation is starting to get them noticed, and all these meatheads can see is a lowly Cadet and this old dude that’s not even a soldier, just a makeup-wearing queer asshole of a civvie with enough money to buy his way in. 

Ajay knows that’s what they see, and it’s what they don’t see that is going to get one of them killed. 

One of them, that is, not him or Pagan. 

Of course, today _would_ be the day that they decide to start having a problem. A couple of those muscle-bound morons wait until he’s separated from Pagan and catch him alone in a corner, and it’s mostly just a little newbie-baiting, just testing the new guy to see what he’s made of, the low man on the totem pole, and he gets it broken up quick before it comes down to more than just taunts and some shoves. But all the same, he can see Pagan’s eyes filling with hot dark crazy. 

Pagan comes from a different school of thought when it comes to threat assessment. Assassination attempts for more than half his life, and he has the scars to prove it. If these morons push him too hard, he’s going to snap and murder somebody and that’s all there is to it. It’s hard for him to discern bluffing threats from real threats…

…and Pagan answers threats with deadly force. On behalf of himself _and_ his partner. 

 

Pagan insists on walking him back to their quarters, and he doesn’t so much walk as float, on red alert. Ajay tries to talk him down but he’s mostly beyond hearing, intent on his mission and he yanks their mattress back and pulls out a loaded Beretta, drops the clip and slams it back home, double checks that there’s one in the chamber, thumbs the safety off.

“Goddamn it Pagan, you...you can’t just have an unlicensed live firearm in here!” Ajay nearly shouts in dismay, and then remembers to keep his voice down. “It breaks like fifteen regs. Shit, do you want me demoted? Do you _want_ to see me kicked out of this program, after all that we went through? Is that what you’re angling for, here? Because that’s what’s going to happen, sure as a shit sandwich if you go waving a fucking _gun_ around at those idiots like a goddamn _maniac!”_

And the look on Pagan’s face...fuck. So much in that look. Defiance, anger, hurt, mistrust. _You too, Ajay?_ his eyes say. Haunted. Always with his back to a wall, never anyone on his side, in his corner, that four inch scar across his back a physical reminder of what happens when he lets people near him. That other, invisible wound in his mind, in his heart still gaping wide from the last time he trusted. 

Ajay can see his hands trembling.

He closes his eyes, reaches for him with his mind. They’ve never tried it without the helmets; they say that after awhile some pilots can bond so tightly to each other that they can link without the Pons system at all. Their brains start making the right wavelengths on their own, and even though Ajay is exhausted he can feel his own brain shift into that mode when he tries it, a decidedly weird feeling.

“Don’t,” Pagan snarls out, a wounded animal, when he feels Ajay reach for him. _“Don’t...”_

But it’s too late, Ajay is connected that fast, like falling and he can already feel him, that light...not as clearly as with the helmets, but that burning feeling is the same, jumbled and _have to protect you keep you safe, love you, can’t fail again won’t survive it this time, may as well kill me too,_ his mind full of _rage_ and _fear_ and nowhere for Pagan to really put either one and Ajay wrenches back, startled. Just in time to see Pagan disappearing out the door...but at least he leaves the gun behind. 

Shit. Ajay flips the safety back on and hides it back under the mattress. 

Ajay had just…wanted to reassure him, hold him the way he can’t out here, tell him that he’s not angry with him, that everything’s okay, he knows he’s still upset from earlier, they both are, no one here is going to hurt either of them, that he can still trust him. There, in that place where they don’t need clumsy and awkward words. 

But Ajay doesn’t try to stop him, gives him his space. After all, you can’t keep secrets in the Drift; nowhere to hide, no way to lie, and Ajay won’t force that link on him.

 

Pagan doesn’t come back that night. 

 

Ajay wakes in the early morning hours from a thin and restless sleep to find him tucked up in what has to be an uncomfortable position and trying to sleep in the armchair. 

“What are you doing?” Ajay mumbles at him. 

“Didn’t want to bother you,” Pagan mutters back, also shifting restlessly. 

“You’re being stupid. Come on and get in,” Ajay says, holding the covers up for him.

After a second or two of deliberation he does, still with his clothes on. At least he took his shoes off. He’s also cold, and Ajay scoots closer to him as Pagan burrows gratefully into the blankets. Ajay moves a little closer still, so that they’re just barely touching. He figures if there’s cloth between them, it’s not that weird, right? Just until he warms up. Pagan seems to have no complaints. 

He accidentally falls asleep with his fingers resting against Pagan’s chest, not realizing that his sleeping mind is brushing against Pagan’s reassuringly. 

_Safe here; us together, safe._

 

\-----------------------------------

 

The next day, the Dome’s rumor mill is running hard and fast. You can never really trust that kind of talk on a military base, but the general consensus is that that crazy asshole Min stole a steak knife from the kitchen and broke into Ramey’s quarters in the middle of the night and tickled his scrote with it for fucking with Ghale in the mess hall. Promised much worse for him and his mates if it continued. 

That’s the general rumor that’s going around, and true or not, their fellow pilots decide that discretion is the better part of valor and back the hell off.

 

\-----------------------------------


	5. Shell Game

\-------------------------------------------

They don’t generally get a lot of rec time; their days are spent in the Psych’s office and in the gym and the Combat Room, studying the Badger’s systems and controls, an endless cycle of training and training. But after that last rough Psych session and the following mess hall incident, they’re given the whole next day off. 

“Go decompress, seriously,” Dr. Hannah tells them.

Since most of the on-base entertainment consists of old holovids and decks of cards, Pagan proposes that they go out and see the city, and Ajay agrees. But before that they both sleep in, which Ajay is amazed at; Pagan’s seldom in their quarters still when Ajay’s alarm goes off in the mornings, and here he is sleeping until ten o’clock like a normal human.

Pagan makes the whole bed warm, and Ajay keeps drowsing, stretching, falling asleep again. He can’t seem to stay awake in the soft dark, the sounds of Pagan’s tiny whuffs of breath soothing. It’s not like they have a window to make the room bright, and with the Dome’s personnel areas buried in the center of the facility it could be anytime at all. 

It’s nice, just to lay here with another warm person beside him. He couldn’t say why exactly, but…it’s a content kind of feeling all the same. 

Ajay’s in between drowses when Pagan wakes up. Ajay watches his eyebrows furrow and his whole body tense up before his eyes snap open...but as soon as he sees Ajay, he instantly relaxes again with a little smile for him, unguarded. Ajay grins back.

 

Later, when they’re getting ready, Pagan pulls their mattress back and gets the gun and tucks into the back of his belt and then pulls his shirt on over top of it, leaving it untucked. He buttons it and turns around for Ajay, holds his arms out. 

“Well? How is it? Am I printing?”

Ajay looks up from putting on his socks and examines him critically.

“Like the goddamn New York Times,” he says, and Pagan sighs and leaves the gun on the desk while he tucks his shirt in and goes in search of his lightest jacket. “Why do you want to be carrying, anyway? Isn’t Hong Kong pretty strict about that kind of thing?”

Pagan sighs again,

“Well, I do have to say…there is the small possibility that there may still, erm, be a price on my head. But not to worry! Just a precaution, and it’s been many years and so many of those guys are dead now and…it’s just a precaution. It’s fine!”

It sounds like he’s maybe trying to convince himself more than he is Ajay, but he trusts him. If he says it’s fine, then that’s fine with him. If he says they ought to take the gun, then that’s fine too. He’s not worried about it, probably less worried about it than Pagan seems to be; they’re Jaeger pilots…well, Jaeger pilots in training, anyway. The government of Hong Kong would crucify anybody for messing with them, what with the Pan-Pacific Defense Corps being headquartered here and how the Jaeger program keeps the city safe. 

\-------------------------------------------

It’s an absolutely beautiful day, as they take the ferry across Victoria Bay; blue sky, white puffy clouds, and a fine breeze. The whole waterfront seems to be one big park, and they wander around for awhile, just looking at things and people and art installations and the hustle and bustle of it all. Ajay kind of wants to do the whole tourist thing, but Pagan wants to show him stuff off the beaten path.

“My boy, don’t you have any interest in seeing what Hong Kong the actual city looks like, rather than the Hong Kong that the city wants you to see?” 

Ajay thinks he’s following this train of logic, maybe, but even if he wasn’t he’d probably agree just to keep Pagan happy. He doesn’t really care, one way or the other, is just happy to be out of the Dome for the day. 

Pagan leads him through the beaten path, all right; past a dizzying succession of tiny shops and market stalls selling everything under the sun, and these streets are so narrow that he can almost touch the stalls on either side, so narrow that the towering buildings overhead nearly block out the sun, leaving everything in perpetual shadow. 

“Oh, I know a place you might like to see,” Pagan says brightly, and leads him down yet another alley, across a busy street, the sun temporarily blinding, and down a dirty set of stairs to what turns out to be a basement arcade. Pagan shoves open the squealing metal door and pokes his head inside. “Ah! Just as I remember!” he pronounces, and then wrinkles his nose a little. “Including the smell. Well my boy, would you like to try your luck?” with a little competitive gleam in his eye. And how can Ajay say no to that?

Pagan comes back with two rolls of coins and proceeds to trounce him _so hard_ at all of those old games, at Centipede and Galaga and Space Invaders. Ajay just…can’t beat him, at any of them, despite the fact that he can’t have touched any of these in decades. And Pagan’s tiny but smug smile…it lights an answering competitive fire under his ass, and he grips the controls. He will win a round, at least one; he _will._

It never occurs to him that he’s on Pagan’s turf, playing Pagan’s games-of-choice, and that Pagan’s spent so many bored hours of his youth in places like this that he pretty much has the algorithms of these old games memorized. Buried deep in his mind is the exact sequence of Donkey Kong’s barrel drops, every optimal path in Pac-Man, and the muscle memory to go with it.

Pagan’s been watching him with amusement for the last fifteen minutes; his gritted teeth, the sweat gleaming on his forehead, his handsome brow furrowed in determination.

“Hmm, I propose a little wager. Are you interested? How about…the loser of the next round buys us dinner. What do you say to that?” Pagan asks casually. And Ajay takes that bait. Of course he does, he’s such a good-natured, predictable lad, Pagan thinks, as he carefully, craftily sets himself up to lose. 

Ajay pumps a fist and crows in victory when he finally, _finally_ manages to barely beat Pagan’s Qbert score…but something isn’t quite right. He can’t put his finger on it. Pagan’s grinning as he pats him on the back and congratulates him, but…Ajay looks at him suspiciously.

“You fucking threw that, didn’t you?”

Pagan snorts. “Now why would I do such a thing?” said with just that right tone of wounded indignation. Subtle and correct in every way, but it’s a lie all the same. Did he pick it up from his mind? Pagan tries to laugh it off, ruffles his hair. “No, no, you won it fair and square, and I will hold up my end of the bargain. Are you hungry?” Trying to distract him. 

Ajay seizes him by the elbow.

“Oh no Pagan, oh no. Not so fast. We’re gonna play one more round. Over here, though.” And drags him to the Street Fighter cabinet. 

Just as he thought, Pagan’s fucking _awful_ at Street Fighter, truly terrible, and is probably just as bad at any game made after 1985 or so. After Ajay fucking wrecks him through five straight matches, he gets to have a proper victory celebration without the shadow of cheating allegations.

 

\-----------------------------------------

 

These places that Pagan keeps taking him seem…really un-Pagan. The restaurant he takes Ajay to is an absolute dump, an almost literal hole in the wall, little dirty tables with dirty chairs lined up in a dirty alley, with an old tarp for an awning. It is packed with locals though, filled with families and businessmen and teenagers eating with their friends. 

When Pagan sees the look on Ajay’s face, he assures him that the place is one of the best in Hong Kong. 

“Don’t let looks deceive, my boy! Never judge a book by its cover and all that…judge it by the quality of its dim sum and fish balls.” 

And damn if he isn’t right, the food is _amazing,_ with Pagan gently teasing Ajay about his clumsy chopstick skills, smiling and laughing like he hardly ever does in the Dome, without that knife’s edge of sardonic and cruel. He’s been doing a lot of it today, ever since they woke up. It’s kind of nice. 

But when they sat down, Pagan had unbuttoned his jacket, and every time someone gets anywhere near them he moves his hand to rest on his hip, surreptitiously hooking the fabric out of the way with his thumb. It looks so natural and careless, his body language so relaxed, that Ajay would have never noticed if he didn’t already know he was carrying. He doesn’t even look up from his food, neatly plying his chopsticks…but his other hand is there, casually ready against any threat. It’s sad and comforting at the same time, him observing everyone and every movement in his peripheral vision, the picture of relaxation but ever watchful. Trying to keep them safe, never letting that guard down.

 

After they eat, Pagan proposes that they take the ferry to Lamma Island so they can walk off dinner on the beach. 

The hills are beautiful and green and everything is hazy with all the soft humidity in the air. Since its evening the beach is filled with couples doing the exact same thing they are, which Ajay looks at askance, and then looks at Pagan askance. He seems to be oblivious though, both to the couples and the date-like atmosphere of this activity. In any case, he doesn’t walk all that close to Ajay, but when he wanders off for a moment and then comes back with a pretty seashell and tries to give it to him with an excited little smile, Ajay has to ask. 

“Pagan, is this like…some kind of a weird date or something?” he says, dubiously. “Should we be holding hands?” 

It comes out harder, colder than he meant it to. Even a little mocking, and he winces internally.

Pagan stares at him, the smile sliding off his face. There’s a little disbelief there now, and some other emotion Ajay can’t really name. Then his eyes harden. He grunts in annoyance. 

“Forget it, then,” is all he says, his face closing off with an expression of bland boredom, that cheerfulness gone. He raises his hand and tosses the little shell away, and Ajay almost blurts out no, don’t but it’s too late, it’s gone. Pagan jams his hands into his pockets and gazes off across the water for a moment, the rolling surf. Then he looks at Ajay and jerks his head back the way they came. 

No more is said about it, but he’s quiet and just stares out the window on the ride back and Ajay feels like maybe he ruined something special anyway. Hurt his feelings.

He shouldn’t have said that. Why did he say that, especially that idiotic crack about holding hands? The last time they ‘held hands,’ it was because they were both drowning in Pagan’s ripping anguish. Clinging to each other with bruising force, like a lifeline. God.

And he knows good and well that it’s not a _date_ date; all Ajay ever sees in him is _Ishwari, Ishwari_ and that heart-breaking longing. Grief. But this was Pagan dropping walls with him all the same, or trying to, and he went and fucked it up by saying that like an idiot and not taking his stupid shell.

 

It doesn’t occur to him until hours later that he’s possibly the only person alive that can hurt Pagan’s feelings.

 

\-------------------------------------------

 

Later, when they’re in their quarters and he’s trying to find his headphones and Pagan is reading a book, Ajay happens to glance at the shelf that runs across the top of the tiny desk. Most of the people stationed here use it for keepsakes and knickknacks, and he has a picture of Mom and a few other small things on his side of the shelf. 

Pagan doesn’t have anything on his side…except that little shell is sitting there, the one he wanted to give to Ajay. Either he didn’t end up throwing it or somehow spotted it again and picked it back up without Ajay noticing because here it is, and he’s almost positive it’s the same one. He’s put it here like it’s something important to him. Seeing it there alone on that bare shelf makes his heart twinge a little, which is also stupid, but he reaches out and picks it up. It _is_ pretty, with purple and snowy white and gold colors on it. 

He was dumb not to take it when it was offered, thoughtless, but maybe he can make up for it a little. He runs his fingers over it and sets it down on his side instead, in front of the picture of Ishwari. But now Pagan’s side is completely bare again. He looks over his own things and picks up a large ornate bead, dark red and gold, like you’d string on a necklace. It had belonged to his mom, and she had treasured it because it was one of the few things that she was able to bring with her from Kyrat. Ajay gently sets it down over on Pagan’s side. 

When he turns around Pagan’s watching him over the top of his tablet, eyes cool and disinterested, and then they flick down, back to the book. 

Later that night, after they’ve gone to bed, Ajay makes himself reach across that hand span’s worth of space and touches his shoulder in the dark.

“I’m sorry I acted like an asshole. And I really liked seeing your city. Thank you for showing it to me, and I should have told you that earlier,” he whispers, and Pagan doesn’t say anything, but he reaches out with his mind and touches Ajay’s with that warm gold feeling, a relief, and then reaches up and brushes Ajay’s fingers against his shoulder with his own. A feather-light caress, all forgiven.

 

\---------------------------------------

All the next day, Pagan seems off, and distracted. Keeps looking at his phone and frowning, texting and frowning, staring at the ceiling, the deck…and frowning, and texting. 

Ajay’s coming back from dinner when he hears Pagan’s voice from behind their closed door, seemingly talking on the phone. He pushes the door open carefully so it doesn’t make the low grinding squeal it usually does and sees Pagan sitting in the chair, eyes trained on the holoscreen above the bed. He has it turned to CNN and muted and it’s showing scenes of chaos from Kyrat, explosions and fire and ragged-looking guys in blue and yellow running around with AKs and molotovs. 

Looks like things are maybe not going so well over there. 

“…Yuma, I can’t come back yet…you know that I can’t, you know why I can’t…Yuma, dearest, calm down please…no, we’re beginning the simulation training in the Jaeger _tomorrow_ …no, listen, if we can’t stop the Kaiju, how long until they’re in the Indian Ocean, Yuma? How long until they hit Kolkata, less than three hundred miles from our fucking border? _How fucking long?_ No, I’m telling _you,_ it has nothing to do with Ghale. I can’t…Yuma…I CAN’T DO ANY OF THIS ALONE, ALL RIGHT? There, are you happy now? Does that make me fucking _weak,_ Yuma? I need you, goddamnit, I need ALL of you there, I need Ghale, and if I hear that word one more time I’m going to throw this fucking phone into the bulkhead...no, get Noore on that, she can handle…”

“…you did _what._ ” 

Ajay’s been watching the broadcast quietly, standing behind Pagan’s chair and not wanting to bother him, especially since he seems to be working up a head of steam arguing with his sister. But that low, deadly tone, sudden and menacing, has him training his eyes on the back of Pagan’s head instead. 

“Now, I want you to listen to me very carefully _mei mei,_ did I not explicitly say her family was not to be harmed, only imprisoned? We need Noore’s cooperation, and we had that because we had leverage. _Had._ Past tense. Leverage, cooperation. Leverage, cooperation. Now we have neither. What about that phrase was so difficult for you to _fucking_ understand?” The venom in his voice has the short hair bristling on the back of Ajay’s neck, and it’s not even aimed at him. 

“I’m so sick of your short-sighted bullshit. Recall all of your little troopers up in the mountains. That is absolutely an order, I’m not fucking around,” Pagan says then, and that fast all that venom is gone; now he just sounds tired, absolutely exhausted. “Put Paul on the line, I’m done. I’m so done with you right now.” 

As Kyrat burns on the holoscreen in front of him.

Ajay forgets sometimes that he’s still the king of an actual country, one that’s seemingly in the middle of a civil war…and Kyrat picked about the worst time to explode like a powder keg. Pagan doesn’t need this right now; hell, neither of them can afford to be distracted by this kind of shit. 

He finds himself wanting to reach out and touch him, distract him from what’s going on in the news. Rub his shoulders, his neck, give comfort…but they don’t really do that. Not out here, anyway.

\-------------------------------------------


	6. The Badger and the Giraffe

\------------------------------------------

Today they’re running simulations in the Badger for the very first time.

The J-Tech Chief, Tendo Choi, comes down from the observation deck to talk to them about getting set up. After Ajay salutes and Pagan shakes his hand, they get down to business.

“I’m sure you know a lot already about what to expect from today, but I’ll be monitoring from up there to make sure everything goes smoothly, and we’ll run it just like a real engagement. That means getting in the drivesuits and getting them all set up and calibrated, dropping the conn-pod into your Jaeger so you can get used to that, the whole nine yards.” He slaps his hands together, with a grin. “So! Let’s get started. Who’s your primary? We can try it both ways to be sure, if you want, but you guys usually already know.”

Ajay hooks a thumb at Pagan without looking, and so doesn’t realize that Pagan is pointing back at him.

Choi laughs. “Really guys? Just trying to make my job harder, huh?”

“What? No...Pagan, it’s your fucking Jaeger.”

Pagan just snorts. “The Honey Badger is yours, my boy; she’s yours. She’s always been yours. And I’ll be your secondary, and have your back. Imagine it, Ajay!” Pagan says gleefully. “We’re going to get to kill sea monsters with a giant _fucking_ robot and something very like a lightsaber. I mean, I believe I may have watched this television show as a child,” and then Pagan throws back his head and laughs. His amusement sets Ajay off too; even after preparing for this for so long, the reality of it is still faintly ridiculous.

Choi laughs a little too. “Fine, that’s fine! Set Ghale up as Primary,” he yells up to the waiting techs. “Go get suited up gentlemen, and we’ll have your Jaeger ready.”

Pagan’s wearing the standard issue pilot’s coveralls and boots for once, as Gary and his subordinate conn-techs lay out the rig pieces and get to work on the fittings. They’re custom-made for each pilot, of course, but inside are thousands and thousands of tiny contacts that have to fit just right against the skin to interface with the Jaeger correctly. So first they had to strip down to their underwear, Pagan grumbling about it a little, but it’s only Gary and his own people. 

Ajay’s just glad that Pagan wears normal, un-embarrassing boxer-briefs like every other man he’s ever known. 

Once they get the drivesuits built around them, it’s another long hour of getting them calibrated so they won’t bind anywhere, Gary barking directions at them.

“Turn, left arm ninety degrees, push that shoulder coupling as far as it will go. Now, hold...and set it,” and that calibration gets entered into the onboard system. They have to run the whole gamut of strange squatting positions and deep knee bends and arms over their heads, sometimes at the same time so the techs can make sure that the torso plates aren’t going to hang on that stretch.

Any resistance or binding at a critical moment could kill them.

After two chilly hours of this, they get a little break, long enough to share sandwiches and a thermos of that godawful mess hall coffee that a tech brings up, still in their underwear. They eat right there in a corner of the ready-room, out of the techs’ way, as they take the suits completely apart and smear purple dye on each and every contact. The ones that don’t stain their skin on initial calibration will all have to be adjusted by hand, with tiny screwdrivers. 

It’s a superior system to the old suits, with the all-over thin membrane, but it’s a pain in the ass to get set up. But once they have the calibration down, him and Pagan will just have to step into the boots, put their arms through the sleeves and into the gauntlets, hit the power switch, and everything will mate up and fit them perfectly.

Pagan, legs crossed elegantly at the knee, remarks, “It’s very strange to be a soldier sometimes, isn’t it, dear boy? Very odd indeed.” He sips his coffee, grimacing a little every time he does, but it’s hot and his skin is chilled and pebbled. Ajay’s is too, but there’s no sense in climbing back into clothes just to turn around and have to take them right back off again. Pagan scoots a little closer until they’re just touching, and Ajay puts his arm around his waist. They’re both cold and it’s just them and a few of their crew, so who cares? 

Pagan’s entertaining himself by stretching out his bare toes and wiggling them, and then discovers that the light is casting their shadows onto the floor. Seeing that Ajay’s watching for lack of absolutely anything else to do, he snickers and tries to make shadow animals with his feet.

“Look, what’s this one?”

Ajay studies the foot-shadow critically. Pagan’s still wiggling his toes, so...

“A bird? Wait, no...a monkey?”

Pagan rolls his eyes. “Oh Ajay, my dear boy, are you blind? It’s obviously a giraffe, _look,_ anybody with eyes could see it...”

“If it’s a goddamn giraffe, then why are you wiggling your toes? What’s supposed to be moving on a fucking giraffe?” There’s no heat in it, of course; Ajay’s just in the mood to fuck with him.

Pagan makes tutting noises at him. “Tone! _Really_ Ajay, I think you should get your vision checked. Gary…GARY!” Pagan bellows, when he doesn’t respond quickly enough for his liking. “Get the fuck over here and tell us what this shadow looks like!”

Gary, of course, shoots Pagan the look that deserves and goes right back to what he was doing, as Ajay laughs.

Pagan takes that opportunity to shift in his seat, and in a movement so fast it’s blurred, jams his cold toes into Ajay’s ribcage and _tickles._

“Oh fuck, no you don’t! No!!” Ajay screeches, a distinctly embarrassing sound. His desire to hold the coffee cup safely out of range and not dump it all over the both of him opens up his whole flank to attack, and Pagan takes shameless advantage of it by trying to cram his toes into his _armpit._

“Fuck you, you goddamn _asshole,_ that’s fucking COLD,” Ajay shouts through laughter, but he manages to snag Pagan’s ankle and hoist it so that he has to surrender, or be dumped unceremoniously into the floor. 

“Mercy! Mercy, oh shit,” Pagan sputters, laughing so hard he’s crying, and Ajay lets him go cautiously, on the lookout for further treachery. But Pagan merely wipes his eyes with a final chuckle, picks up his coffee cup and snuggles into Ajay’s side again, just a little. Pressed just a tiny bit closer than he was before.

His dark eyes are bright and happy. He extends his foot again, but away from Ajay. 

“All right, all right, my darling boy, I promise to be good. So…what’s this one? Care to guess?” 

 

It sometimes strikes him at random moments how far they’ve come. Five weeks ago he didn’t know this guy at all, four weeks ago he kind of hated him, and now they’re sitting here pressed together, three-fourths naked, sipping awful coffee and laughing at Pagan’s attempts at stupid shadow foot puppets like the best of friends. 

No, it’s way more than that; they sleep together in the same bed, they touch each other’s minds… 

Pagan’s right. Being in the military is really weird sometimes.

 

\-----------------------------------

 

The in-Jaeger simulations are designed to be as immersive as possible for both the pilots and their crews, so the only difference between the simulated drops and the real thing is that the Badger isn’t physically moving. However, the controls are still sending input and will ‘move’ them around in the simulated environment through the neural link.

Thankfully, the drivesuits calibrate exactly like they’re supposed to, fitting perfectly. Ajay thinks they both look pretty badass, in his personal opinion; sleek and shiny black armor with gold inlay at the interface points, just like the Badger herself. Pagan spared no expense…or at least the people of Kyrat spared no expense, because when they bring out the last part, the spinal interface sections, they’re solid gold. From a practical standpoint that’s the best material, as it’s the most conductive, but _still._

“Jesus,” Ajay says, seeing them glitter in the light as they’re lifted out of their protective cases. When Gary clicks his into place it feels weird as _shit_ as it engages itself along his spinal column, and he can tell it’s heavy, but it’s also perfectly balanced. Pagan grins at him.

“Oddly enough, Kyrat might lack for…hmm…exports of the _legal_ sort, but what we do have is plenty of gold,” and winks for some reason. Ajay decides he really doesn’t want to know.

In any case, Gary and the techs help them get locked into the cradles. There’s not much maneuvering room in their conn-pod; the Badger is overall smaller than most of the other Jaegers, uses less power, has a smaller reactor than the other Jaegers. Pagan had been appalled when Ajay had asked about decontamination procedures. 

‘Decontam…no, no, my boy, the Badger doesn’t leak radiation, good lord! Are you telling me that the other teams are still taking the drugs and having to do scrubdowns after…no, she won’t hurt us, Ajay. When they came to me with the initial design specs, I said, Where’s all the fucking shielding? and the engineers tried to tell me it was too heavy, took up too much room. Make her smaller, I said, and without all of that power-sucking weaponry. We don’t train with plasma cannons and such in the Combat Room, now do we? No. She’s small, but ferocious, just like her namesake. And she won’t harm us.’ 

Ajay glances over at him. It’s one less thing that they have to worry about, at least. He can feel Pagan trying to tamp down his nerves, but he’s not doing that great a job of it. It’s not showing much on the outside, but on the inside he’s a jangling mess. Hopefully that’ll smooth out. Just first-time jitters. 

Choi and the techs dropping the conn-pod into place doesn’t help any, like a fucking amusement park ride. By the time they get the systems brought up and the checks done, and it’s time for Choi to run the neural handshake protocol and link them to the Badger, it’s starting to feel a little like Pagan’s nerves are rubbing him raw. When Choi links them with even more power than with the Pons helmets in the Psych’s office, it’s ten times worse, their shared mindspace like a hot gold sandstorm buffeting him, every bit as bad as that first time in the Psych’s office. Pagan must have been pretty freaked out then too. He thought he’d just gotten used to it. 

_Easy, easy. Calm down. Stay with me._

Although their problem was never ever de-synching; if anything, they link _too_ closely. Ajay tries to send calm thoughts into that space, thinking of _running water and green leaves,_ and _our warm bed,_ and whatever else he can think of, but it’s not really helping much. 

Ajay wishes that Choi would slow this shit down a little, give them a chance to adjust, but this sim has them dropping right into the middle of the city, just like that, and there’s the Kaiju, ripping down buildings and killing people, doing immeasurable damage.

He has to shake his head and remind himself, _sim, it’s just a sim,_ because it does feel very real, and seeing that caused a sudden, visceral sensation of panicked anger that Pagan really doesn’t need right now, but they need to get over there and kill that thing because they’re losing points by the second. At least it spots them and stops murdering innocents and instead comes at them in a terrifying, bellowing rush that they’re definitely not prepared for.

Pagan almost immediately begins to struggle. He fouls a switching sequence while Ajay temporarily takes control of the legs and tries to keep them out of the Kaiju’s reach to give Pagan time to clear that board, fouls it again on the retry and then finally gets it, but he’s struggling badly; with prioritizing the inputs, with the HUD data, with everything. Ajay can feel his agitation, his bitter anger at himself, and it’s not helping anything, not when he can’t focus on the right thing at the right time. 

Ajay tries to stabilize them, even snags inputs to his board to try to lessen the load on him, and it just pisses Pagan off more, spitting fury into their link. He interprets Ajay’s help as being treated like an incompetent child instead of a partner trying to support him, support them together, and Ajay has to keep tamping down his own emotions while a Kaiju rages on their screens and tries to slaughter them. Rage and shame and sweating _distress distress_ beating at his mind, while he tries to complete their fucking objective. 

“Pull it the fuck together,” Ajay finally spits at him, trying to get him to snap out of it, but that self-loathing just gets stronger, and then all of a sudden he’s mad at _Ajay_ like he’s the one making him feel it, like it’s his fault...

Ajay just wants to rip it all away from him, just get the job done himself, sick of just...just _feeling_ so strongly and all over the place, sick of Pagan’s fucking mercurial mind...

...but he can’t. Can’t do it alone, just like Pagan told his sister. Ajay needs him too. 

Together, or not at all.

 

\------------------------------------------

 

Forty-one percent. Forty-one, and that’s their best score out of three attempts.

Back in the ready room, Pagan jams his fingers into his helmet’s latch-plate, rips it off, and hurls it into the nearest wall. Panting for air, eyes wide, his hair sweat-soaked and plastered to his head. 

“What the fuck was that, huh?” Ajay’s exhausted, mostly from feeling slammed and abraded by shit that’s flying around in Pagan’s head. Not feeling particularly patient with him either, especially after that little display of temper. 

Pagan seems just about mad enough at this whole situation, and him personally to try to lash out at him, strike him…

When Pagan catches that thought, Ajay can feel his bewilderment at the idea. Incredulous. And then that hot anger again as he stares at him, a sneer on his hard face. 

“Is that what you think of me? Do you really think me capable of it, boy?” The ‘boy’ is not the half-endearment it usually is when he uses it with Ajay.

Ajay sighs, rubs his face. 

“What I think, is that I live with you, I spend nearly every minute with you, awake and asleep, half the time I’m touching your goddamn _mind_ …and yet, I still can’t figure out what the fuck is going on in your head.”

Still with that sneer, he makes to shove past Ajay and he catches a thought from Pagan, half-formed; _going to lose Kyrat, going to lose this with him, I’m just not strong enough, god help me I’m not what they need, what anybody needs,_ and then Ajay understands, what’s going on with him. And maybe he hasn’t been being fair. Pagan’s being pulled hard in two different directions, and the strain must be enormous…but Ajay needs him _here,_ here with him one hundred percent.

He seizes Pagan roughly by the shoulders to stop him, and Pagan’s face goes from a sneer to something more resembling a snarl but he lets him, lets Ajay manhandle him.

“Listen to me, okay, _listen_ to me. Kyrat…we can’t do anything about the inside of Kyrat. The government stuff. You’re not there, and I’m not there, so we’ve got to let that go. Nothing we can do there. But what we _can_ do, is keep the outside of it safe, you understand me? And that’s way more important. If they kick you off the throne or something, you can fight and get it back. But not if it’s all ashes, if the whole place is rubble. So you and me, we have to stick together and do the part that we can do. We can protect it, protect everything, with the Badger. But I can’t…I can’t do this without you. I need you, Pagan. You’re my partner.”

And with that, he squeezes Pagan’s shoulders and pulls him in until their foreheads are touching, heedless of his sweaty hair. He closes his eyes…and feeds him all the memories that Pagan showed him, all those images of good things that Pagan loves and wants to keep safe, the memories that Ajay keeps close too. He shares all of that so they can look at it together, so he can remind Pagan of why they’re doing this, of what’s at stake when things get hard. 

When Ajay feels Pagan relax against his hands, his face smoothing out, he nudges his head with his.

“Tomorrow, we’re going to get right back in that thing. And I…I’ve got a plan. Do you trust me?”

_Trust me. Trust me, and let go. Let me help you._

Pagan opens his eyes and meets Ajay’s. Hard and glittering.

_Do I have a fucking choice?_

Dismay. He lets Pagan feel it. _You always have a choice. Maybe not the best, but I’ll never try to trap you. Friend, partner,_ Ajay insists. 

Ajay still has his hands on his shoulders in the physical world, his forehead against his, but in that gold place he wraps his arms around him and holds him tightly. He tries to fill that place with _warm, warm; us together,_ with no room for anything else.

Pagan shivers against him a little, both on the outside and in their minds. He’s so stubborn that Ajay feels him trying to be defiant even now, but he’s already starting to forget that charged rage, the potency of it running out of him like water. Ajay rubs at his shoulders.

Pagan shivers again. And surrenders.

“Yes…I do, boy, I do trust you,” he says, his voice a little rusty.

And that time it does sound like an endearment.

\------------------------------------------


	7. Drive

\------------------------------------------

 

“So, are we going to discuss this little plan of yours?” Pagan enquires, after a dinner in which they both sat in the mess hall, shoveled food in mechanically, and then left without saying a word to anyone or to each other. Everyone staring, since the sim scores are public knowledge, but also everyone smart enough to keep their fucking mouths shut about it since the Ramey incident. 

“Do you trust me?” Ajay asks him again. He glances to make sure the door to their quarters is shut.

“You know that I do,” Pagan says heavily, fiddling with the cuff of the cadet’s sweater he’s currently wearing. It’s technically Ajay’s and he ‘borrows’ it occasionally; Ajay doesn’t bother to ask why, or complain, since it always gets returned to his side of their shared closet clean and smelling like that spicy, woodsy smell that Pagan’s clothes have. It also looks nice on him. 

Ajay sucks in a deep breath, lets it out. 

“C’mere, I’d rather just show you.” So Pagan gets up, a little hesitant, and comes over and sits gingerly beside him on the bed. Ajay reaches for his sleeve, pushes it up, and grasps his wrist, and Pagan meets him willingly enough in their shared mindspace. It’s always easier to show each other images if they’re touching.

_Remember that day in the Psych’s office with the cocaine?_

_Of course, but you said that we weren’t going to…_

Ajay shows him that memory of brushing his frontal lobe and triggering that white-hot detonation of pleasure in his mind, and then the calm clarity in the aftermath. He can feel Pagan’s pulse speed up under his fingers at that memory, thudding hard under his warm skin.

 _Oh god, Ajay…I almost passed out. I very nearly…_ He doesn’t have to think it. Ajay knows. He heard Pagan’s fervent thanks that day, loud and clear, that he didn’t come right then and there in his underpants in front of the poor Psych.

_I know, I know! I’ll do it easier this time, I didn’t realize quite how…delicate, you have to be. It’ll work, even Hannah said it’d work. I’m almost certain it’ll help._

Pagan just makes a sound of pained embarrassment.

 _If we don’t do something, they’re going to kick us out. And…you won’t be the only one feeling it, you know. I will, too._

He shows that memory to Pagan too, his side of it, how that euphoric pleasure washed through him as well. His guilty shame. 

Pagan doesn’t pull his wrist out of Ajay’s grasp, but he flops backwards onto the bed and rubs his face with his free hand, chuckling weakly.

 _At least we’ll be in armor I suppose. No one will see the obvious effects._ And then out loud: “Jesus Christ…we are so fucked, aren’t we, my boy?” 

Ajay snorts. “Our brain waves are gonna look like it, at least.”

Pagan groans, and then chokes out a laugh at his bad humor. “How in the bloody hell do we find ourselves in these predicaments? I swear, being in the military is the oddest experience of my life…fine, fine, we’ll do…that thing, and then hopefully I’ll be able to do what I need to do.” 

Pagan sits up again, to give Ajay an unusually sober stare. _I’m truly sorry about today. I really am. I was afraid this whole time that it was going to be an issue…_

 _Don’t worry about it. Really. Just like I said in the Psych’s office, we’ll figure it out, okay?_ “I know that it’s embarrassing, but I really do think it’ll work.” He presses Pagan’s wrist companionably and lets go. 

More and more of their conversations are becoming a weird mix of out loud and in their heads, but at least they haven’t started finishing each others’ sentences yet, thank god. 

 

\------------------------------------------

 

That night, Ajay dreams of a place he’s never actually been, a place where snowy mountains scrape the sky, the air so clear it seems like you could reach out and touch them, and the smell of the air...he’s never smelled air that was so clean and sweet. He feels a sharp pain of longing, so painful that it makes him gasp a little, and he realizes that this is _Pagan’s_ dream, of Kyrat. 

He’s homesick, bitterly so. Ajay never knew it. 

As soon as he realizes that it’s not his dream he’s swimming up out of it, back in bed beside Pagan. When he opens his eyes Pagan’s facing him, arms tucked around himself tighter than usual, his eyebrows furrowed a tiny bit. He...they don’t do usually do this out here, but he hurts, Ajay can feel it, and he wants to make him feel better. Simple. So he reaches out and strokes Pagan’s hair, down his neck and bare freckled shoulder and back up, until he relaxes under his hand.

If he’s being perfectly honest, it scares him a little, that they’re sharing their dreams now. Every day, they’re a bound a little closer, maybe even pushed a little closer, he doesn’t know. 

Ajay doesn’t even know what they are anymore. 

 

He loves him, he does...in order to be successful at this, the pilots _have_ to love each other, have to be best friends in a bond closer than family, closer than marriage; it’s the only way it works. Just like Marshal Pentecost told his whole class of cadets. But how much of that was forced by the PPDC, in their case? 

It’s all brand-new, the Pons system, the Jaegers, making two people share their minds inside a giant machine. Nobody really knows the long term effects. Pentecost also said that once pilots are bound as close as him and Pagan are, that their minds will always yearn for each other, that there will always be a pulling at their minds; the greater the physical distance between them, the harder the pull. Their connection happened so strongly, so quickly…but that’s what the brass told Ajay needed to happen; hell, they’d even devised a special protocol to _ensure_ that it happened. 

And that’s how Ajay finds himself in bed with a man who was his mother’s lover, his hand on his bare skin in the middle of the night, dreaming his dreams.

Pissed about it. Pissed at the coercion of it, not at Pagan. Fear, that he’s following in his mother’s footsteps. That he might be halfway there already. 

His fear loses to his exhaustion however, and he drifts off again still touching Pagan, lulled by his now peacefully sleeping mind.

 

Ajay wakes in the morning, to the sound of Pagan in the shower singing the ‘Love Boat’ theme, his shower song of choice. He has no idea why. Not sure he wants to know why. It should be annoying as shit, but like so many things about Pagan, it’s amusing and a little comforting instead. Pagan singing that dumb song in the shower in his not-half-bad voice means all is right in their little world. 

All he remembers of his night fears is a vague sense of unease, quickly banished.

 

\------------------------------------------

 

After their poor performance the day before, the observation deck is pretty packed today. Ajay sighs, spotting Dr. Hannah, virtually all of their fellow pilots, and all sorts of other people that he’d really like for them to not fuck up in front of. Ajay scrubs at his face with a wordless sound of frustration. They weren’t expecting this big of an audience.

He’s pretty certain that his little plan will work…if they don’t die of embarrassment. But it’s down to the wire. They both know it. If they screw up today, there’s a good chance they’ll lose their spot in the program. Pagan, for not being able to cut it, and him for not being able to cut it with Pagan. 

“Marshal on deck!” Choi yells out, and oh god, can this get any worse? Ajay snaps to attention and gently sweats as Pagan turns, looks the Marshal up and down. 

“Ah, Stacker Pentecost himself!” Loud and far too falsely cheerful, as Ajay can feel Pagan’s anxious nerves ratcheting up and up. Cover, that jovial voice, cover for those nerves...distract, deflect. 

He’s about to embarrass the hell out of them. Ajay can feel it coming, like a boding storm of Pagan’s weirdness.

“So, Marshal,” Pagan says chummily, leaning in. “Did I ever tell you that your name puts me in the mind of one of those truly awful television preachers?” His eyes are bright and hard, smile fixed on his face. Ajay can only watch, still at attention. Aghast inside. But Pentecost doesn’t miss a beat.

“And did I ever mention to you, Pagan Min, that your name makes me think of a bad Cantonese death metal band?” Not even the hint of a smile. “Now go get suited up.”

Pagan’s taken aback, at a loss for a witty reply for what has to be one of the first times in his life. Silence, for one second, two…and then he roars laughter, in surprised but genuine amusement, clapping Pentecost on the upper arm. Ajay relaxes a little. It was exactly the right tack to take with him. The Marshal should run a masterclass in dealing with fractious Jaeger pilots.

Pagan feels a little easier after that, a little less brittle and nervy, as they strip down and step into their drivesuit’s boots, the hydraulics lifting the other pieces of the armored shells up and locking them into place around them. Perfect fit…at least Gary and the rest of their tech crew, thankfully, know what the fuck they’re doing, although Ajay doesn’t think he’ll ever get used to the feeling of that spinal interface locking itself into place, weird little metal fingers all along his spine, moving and settling of their own accord. He suppresses a shiver. 

Once they’re locked in, and Choi drops them into the Badger and begins the neural handshake process, Ajay glances over at Pagan. 

_Trust me._

And then they’re linked deeply, sharing everything. Ajay reaches for him, and Pagan wraps his arms around Ajay’s waist at the same time, in perfect accord. In the physical world, Choi is droning at them to go ahead perform their systems checks before he starts the sim, but they tune that out, because nothing else matters right now except the two of them together in that warm gold place, holding and held. 

Ajay reaches, and thinks of feathers, of bubbles, of things light and airy, and touches him as gently as he knows how to, the merest, merest brush of mental fingers. This time, there’s no white-hot detonation, but a feeling that’s…oh, god, it’s good, it’s very good. A surge of liquid pleasure that’s almost like coming that has him instantly hard, coupled with this feeling like they could do anything, fight anything, as he clutches Pagan’s shoulders and shivers against him. 

Pagan nuzzles at the side of his face, not even really aware he’s doing it as they’re coming down from those sensations. _Good lord. This could get addictive._

Their shared mindspace, when Ajay lifts his head from Pagan’s shoulder, is warm and clear and easy, calm like a sunny day. He squeezes Pagan a little.

 _I think it worked,_ with a sunny happiness of his own.

 

Up on the observation deck, Choi and the rest of the Loccent officers are monitoring their brainwaves and the link between them and their Jaeger. He’s still surprised that they didn’t do very well yesterday; they’re already linking way deeper than most new pilots and should have had a good run…

Choi leans forward, and blinks at the output. 

“What in the actual hell? Did they just…there’s no way! They’re locked in the cradles!”

Dr. Hannah leans over his shoulder. 

“Oh good! They’re trying it, I was hoping they would, after that report I received concerning yesterday’s performance. They’re better than any forty-one percent runs, I know they are…”

“So, what exactly is it that they tried? Because to me, it looks a helluva lot like…”

She sighs. “Yeah Tendo, I’m well aware of what it _looks_ like. It’s…a focus technique. Don’t worry about it, I approved it, it’s in the file.” 

Before he can ask what in the hell that’s supposed to mean, Marshal Pentecost strides over.

“Is there a problem with the…” he trails off, eyes taking in the data on the display. “What in the world? Is that what I think it is?” His eyebrows furrow.

Dr. Hannah sighs again. “No, it’s certainly not…well, not entirely,” but before she can explain the intricacies involved the comms board lights up.

“Primary final checks complete,” Ghale pipes up then, cheerful and not a bit of nerves in his voice.

“Secondary final checks complete,” Min says right after with the same good cheer, a far cry from yesterday.

“Uhhh, yeah. Um…okay. Beginning sim,” Choi says in response, and flips the switch. He’s going to have to get a few drinks into Rachel sometime so she’ll tell him what the fuck is going on with those two. He’s dying with curiosity.

 

\------------------------------------------

 

It’s a beautiful day in this sim. How did Ajay not notice it before? It’s so different with Pagan’s mind like this; the sun sparkling off the mirrored skyscrapers, off the sea in the distance…and as if they are one person, in perfect accord, they step behind the cover of the nearest building. The Badger responds so smoothly, so readily to their merest intention. Again, so different from yesterday.

 _So what’s your plan,_ he thinks at Pagan.

He responds by effortlessly pulling up the street map of this area of the city; he knows every road and alley, but he wants to show Ajay as Ajay carefully leans them out from behind the building to keep an eye on where the Kaiju is. There’s a way to use your finger to draw lines on the map that’ll show in both HUDs, and he knows exactly how to do it, but Ajay can feel his impatience with the speed of this method. He wipes the board and just…imagines what he wants to do, shows it to Ajay like it’s a memory; them climbing onto the elevated freeway here, sneaking behind the Kaiju, getting the jump on it, and slicing its head off with the big, electrified sword that is the Badger’s primary armament. Sinking the forearm claws in and ripping its head off, if the sword fails. Simple.

Ajay laughs in delight. He had forgotten that Pagan can do that imagining thing, can show him things straight from his own imagination. It’s amazing. He agrees with Pagan; of course they can do that. They can do _anything._

A Jaeger of any size is never going to be particularly stealthy, but since the Kaiju is distracted by the prospect of smashing things and stomping around, it doesn’t notice their approach, crouched low and partially covered by the buildings between it and them. They move the Badger carefully around stalled cars on the freeway, being as quiet as possible. The buildings to their left shade half of the roadway and they stick to that side, creeping, creeping. 

Finally, they’re behind the thing without it being the wiser. With one mind, they reach back and grip the sword’s hilt, pulling it free, but when they power it on the Kaiju jerks and looks their direction at the loud hum. Pagan swears at it in blistering Cantonese. Ajay catches the gist of it from his mind, not that he needed to.

 _Move! We gotta go now, fuck it!_

And they do. 

 

One day, when they were training in the Combat Room, Pagan must’ve been bored and stir-crazy because he kept doing random shit just to see if he still could. 

“I haven’t tried this since I was your age,” he had said with a laugh, and then proceeded to run at the wall, had run _up_ it a couple of steps and then kicked off and twisted in midair and swung the staff at Ajay’s face. Flashy move, showoff move, but it had given him a major height advantage. That slashing downward swing was easier for Pagan to execute from that angle and unexpected for Ajay and he had barely gotten his own staff up in time to block. Pagan had pulled that blow of course, would never seriously hurt him, but Ajay remembers both his shock and the surprising elegance of it. 

 

Pagan shows him that day because he wants them to do that same maneuver now, since the Kaiju is so much taller, the head so much higher up. Wants them to kick off the side of a nearby building and launch thirty feet of electrified steel into that Kaiju’s face. Fuck it, why not? With his mind in perfect sync with Pagan’s, and his own memory of Pagan doing that move, his balance, the exact pivot point…he knows they can. 

Together, they hop down from the freeway. Together, they race for that building that’s nearest the Kaiju, and it’s beautiful, like…like nothing he’s ever experienced, working in tandem like this, the satisfaction of it like an instrument coming into tune. _Also addictive,_ a small part of his mind thinks, as they launch themselves at that wall, one, two, three driving steps up the side of it, the Badger’s splayed metal feet digging in with a crunch of glass and masonry.

 _Whoops, bit of collateral damage there,_ Pagan thinks cheerfully, as they leap, like flying, and then a perfectly executed twist and together they slam that blade through the Kaiju’s neck, severed head flying one way, toxic blue blood the other. 

 

\------------------------------------------

 

Ninety-two percent, this time. Their average over three runs ends up being a ninety-four, the second highest score of the day. When Choi cuts the sim program, they can hear the cheers from the observation deck over the comm system. 

“Well done. Well done, that’s what we like to see,” says Pentecost, leaning over the back of Choi’s seat, speaking more or less into his headset. 

Dr. Hannah takes her turn. “Excellent work Ghale, that was perfect. Look at how far you’ve come! I’m so proud of the two of you.”

The neural link’s shut down, but Ajay can still feel him preen a little, just a little, under that praise. Pagan’s not exactly used to it, not used to people liking anything he does. His approval ratings in Kyrat reflect it. Abysmal. Ajay saw it on the news. 

Getting the drivesuits off and hitting the shower feels so much better after they’ve had a good run. Even dinner tastes better somehow, and although Pagan still stiffens at everyone who gets near them in the mess hall, he suffers through getting his shoulders patted companionably and is generally on his best behavior. Doesn’t stick a fork in a single person for having the audacity to touch either of them. Doesn’t even snarl and snap at them. 

A month ago, he would barely come in here at all, the commotion and chatter and the inability to get his back against a solid surface just too much. 

“Ajay my boy, you’re fucking brilliant, did I mention that?” Pagan says, as they’re getting ready for bed. They’ll be doing the same thing tomorrow, running the sims, and they’ll keep running them until Pentecost gives them the greenlight to take the Badger out for an actual test run. 

“Nah, that was all you. That move, and the way that thing’s head flew? Fuckin’ amazing!” Ajay responds, pulling his boots off. He’s still a little jazzed on adrenaline and the contentment of a job well done, that and the addictive feeling of them being in perfect sync.

Pagan looks at him seriously. “Fifty-fifty, Ajay. You and I, right down the middle. We’re in this together.” He grins then, his mood changing whiplash fast. That smile looks a little sharklike. “We’re going to tear their shit up! The Kaiju won’t know what hit them.”

Ajay just grins back at him. Him and Pagan together are gonna give those things fucking nightmares.

 

“Knew you could do it,” Ajay whispers to him later that night, as they’re falling asleep. Pagan’s quiet for a time, long enough that he wonders if he’s drifted off. His own eyelids are almost too heavy to stay up.

“Thank you, for making it so I could,” Pagan murmurs back, voice soft with sleep.

 

\------------------------------------------


	8. Sunshine

\------------------------------------------

**Warrior**

After three long days of running sims until they’re dreaming of swinging swords at various Kaiju heads, they’re given the green light to take the Badger out for her first, actual live test run.

“Go ahead,” Marshal Pentecost says, with a little smile. “Take her for a spin. The two of you have earned it.”

Ajay and Pagan don’t have to be told twice. Given full control of the Badger, they lurch through the blast doors just a little bit clumsily, but they find their balance and they’re off and the entire Bay is their playground. The sun through the conn-pod’s screens is beautiful, and all that blue, glittering water of Victoria Bay is spread out in front of them, the whole Miracle Mile theirs to explore. 

But first they stop and let the Badger just stand there as Pagan switches the main screens to transparent mode, letting the actual warm sun in, and as one they reach up and unlatch the helmets and pull them off, just for a moment, to let that sun touch their faces. 

Life in the Dome is often dark and dingy and cramped, and the outdoor spaces are dominated by transports and crews coming and going and every square inch of the place put to utilitarian use. Ajay’s more used to it, having come straight from frigid Kodiak Island…but Pagan craves the sunlight. He sighs in contentment, then snaps his helmet back on. Time to go to work. They’ve been waiting for this day for what feels like _months._

Most of the water is shallow enough that it doesn’t impede them much, but Pagan, as the secondary, practices by querying the Badger’s internal systems to display the bathymetric map of the Bay in their HUDs. The whole Shatterdome is probably watching their first run, and they’ll get laughed out of the mess hall tonight if they go stepping off a reef shelf or fall into a deepwater trench and have to be lifted out. But as soon as they know where the drop offs are, they’re free to go anywhere, as long as they don’t accidentally upend any fishing boats or junks or ferries.

It feels like a shot of pure freedom, them moving together completely synced like this, even better than the sims. Once they hit their stride, it makes Ajay think of dancing. That’s something of what it feels like, he decides, dancing with Pagan, in perfect harmony with him and Pagan...Pagan is transcendentally happy, _free, so free,_ full to the brim with golden joy, almost too bright to look at in his Drifting mind. Laughing, he wraps Ajay up in his arms.

 _Look at us, Ajay! Oh, just look at us!_

All of his work to get to this point, all the money, all the late, coffee-fueled nights with the engineers going over the design specs over and over again, even later nights arguing the merits of this crazy plan with Yuma...and now here they are, and he’s here with Ajay, in a Jaeger so well-crafted that it feels like it was custom designed to complement their strengths. But it’s Ajay that made it all possible, how he helps him focus with that gentle surge in his mind so they can do this, the memory of that orgasmic pleasure mingling with his current joy, filling them both with his sunshine.

And in that moment, with a sudden bolt of that sunshine feeling low down in his belly, Ajay wants nothing more than to kiss him.

That overwhelming happiness that Ajay feels from him seems tamped for a minute, thoughtful, and Ajay flinches. God, he’s so _stupid_ sometimes. Where the fuck did that even _come_ from?

Pagan looks that thought over, examines it from different angles, being his usual curious self...and then lets it go without direct comment. He laughs at Ajay’s discomfort, but it’s not cruel. _What goes on in the Badger stays in the Badger, isn’t that right, my boy? But we have more important things to think about. Look, Ajay, look at this! Can you feel it?_

Pagan’s already distracted by the way the light glitters on the waves and he pulls them that way, still laughing and delighted by the sparkles and the feel of the big mech shifting under them, all of that power at their fingertips. 

They decide together to attack one of the fake Kaiju that are set up around the roped-off training range at the back of the Dome, to feel the difference in how the Badger responds in the real world versus the sims. Pagan wants to go back to base and get their sword, and voices it out loud, but Pentecost refuses. 

“Oh, no, Ranger. Walk first, then run, and _then_ you get to swing that big sword around.” There might have been a hint of a smile in his voice. 

“Sir, yes sir,” Pagan responds, with just a hint of sarcasm, just shy of cheerful insubordination like usual. Ajay throws him an image of the Badger’s claws; three meters of retractable hardened steel nestled in each gauntlet. Pagan’s joyful savagery is definitely rubbing off on him. Together, they pounce and gleefully rip the heads off of giant rubber Kaiju, the Badger looking very much like her namesake as wood and rubber bits fly.

 

That evening the entire Kyrati contingent throws a huge, rowdy party in the mess hall. Enough vodka is drunk to power a small submarine, and when one of the Russians breaks out a balalaika, the Americans produce someone with a harmonica and some skill, and someone else snags a wastepaper basket to use as percussion it becomes an international event. The benches get shoved back to make an impromptu dance floor, and a few of their fellow base denizens are already tripping over each other and laughing. Lucky fuckers must not have duty. 

Ajay figures they’re probably going to be training non-stop in the Badger for the foreseeable future, possibly starting at fuck-o’clock tomorrow morning, and cuts himself off after two. Pagan catches that thought and agrees, not that he was likely to get fucked up here anyway, with all these people around that he doesn’t particularly like or trust. He hasn’t done it since they’ve known each other, but Ajay’s glimpses into his memories indicate that Pagan’s more of the sad, solitary kind of drunk. 

That depressing thought has Ajay reaching and patting his shoulder companionably where they’re sitting side by side at the table, but in contrast Pagan’s actual mood is so warm and happy that it practically glows, like a banked fire on a cold day. The resonance of it in his own mind when he touches him feels so good that it’s so easy to just…leave his hand there, one finger just barely brushing the skin of his neck under his collar, even surrounded by other people. Too good to care. Pagan moves into his touch a little and Ajay can feel that he likes it, likes when he’s affectionate with him, likes to be touched…but only by Ajay, no one else. 

While they watch the other hammered pilots attempt something that resembles dancing, Gary and the rest of the Kyrati crew present them with gifts: matching leather bomber jackets with a cartoon honey badger on the back. Some of the other pilot teams have similar ones. Ajay personally thinks they’re cheesy as all hell, and watching Pagan attempt to school his face into some expression that conveys gratitude keeps him entertained for a bit. 

Of course, it was right about then that that asshole Ramey noticed them and just had to say something. 

“What kinda queer shit is going on over here, huh?” He laughs, loud and stupid, but nobody is joining in, not even his own buddies. They just look uncomfortable. Other pilots yell back at him.

“God, Ramey, why d’you always have to be such a dick?” 

“Yeah, leave them alone. You’re fucking wasted, go sleep it off.” 

“You’re starting to sound like a little fuckin’ jealous-ass _bitch,_ Ramey! What was your last sim score, huh?” This last from somewhere in the back, and _that_ comment earns loud laughter. 

“Who was that? Who the fuck said that?” Ramey roars drunkenly. Pagan’s been watching all of this with bright and curious interest. He’s got that mischievous gleam in his eye that he gets when people that he doesn’t like fight with each other; it seems to happen with dismaying frequency in the Dome. Jaeger pilots tend to be a high-strung lot. 

He watches happily as their fellow pilots give Ramey shit for once, until Ramey, for some insane reason known only to himself, lunges across the table and seizes Pagan’s collar. 

Ajay’s on his feet with a snarl before he even has the conscious thought, _rage_ suddenly beating white-hot in his head, which surprises even himself. But Pagan feeds him _easy, it’s all right_ lightning-fast, mind brushing reassuringly against his. 

Gripping Ramey’s wrist, Pagan moves into that lunging grab and yanks him forward, slamming his forearm down across the sharp table’s edge. Ramey howls in pain at the shock of finding himself suddenly stretched and pinned across the table, with an excellent view of the fork that seems to have almost magically appeared in Pagan’s other hand. It’s so close to Ramey’s eye that his eyelashes are brushing the tines. He blinks owlishly, trying to focus on it.

The music and happy chatter all stop abruptly at Ramey’s howl. Silence.

Pagan makes a little tsk tsk sound, that manic gleam in his eyes even brighter. 

“Now, now, we _are_ in a predicament, aren’t we, Ramey my boy! Whatever will you do? Pull back, and I’ll break your goddamn arm,” Pagan says jovially, and grinds his forearm into the edge of the table for emphasis until Ramey gasps a little. “You can pilot that worthless Jaeger of yours with just one, can’t you? Big swinging dick like you? Of course you can.” He sounds almost fond. “Or,” and here his voice drops, low and suddenly full of cold venom, “if you so much as twitch in my direction again, I’ll just scoop out your _fucking_ eyeball. A little twist is all it takes, boy.” He runs the fork teasingly along his eyelashes. 

Ramey makes an unidentifiable sound. If Ajay had to guess he’d say he’s sobering up pretty fucking fast.  
Pagan grins suddenly, disarmingly. “Again, I’m sure you’ll be able to do your job just fine lacking an eye, correct? You do have two of them, after all. You’ll never miss it!” That smarmy cheer back in his voice, like it was never gone. 

Everyone within a ten foot radius of them is watching this performance in fascination, Ajay included.

“But today is your lucky, _lucky_ day, you goddamned shitstain,” Pagan pronounces happily. “I for one, am in a fucking _fantastic_ mood, just bloody wonderful…so! What I’m going to do, is let your _ngong gau_ self slink out of here like a tail-tucked dog. Back to your fucking room, where you’ll always be wondering when I’m going to show up in the middle of the night to do more than just tickle your balls, as I promised you.” Pagan cocks his head, looking down at Ramey with a bemused expression. “It really _is_ like you didn’t believe me when I warned you about that, you poor, stupid bastard.” He withdraws the fork, releases Ramey’s wrist…and then reaches out and thwaps his nose, as if he really is an errant dog. “Now get out of my face, I’m sick of having to look at you.” 

Ramey’s co-pilot Dietrich mercifully chooses that moment to show up, pushing through the crowd in his pajamas, having been rousted out of bed by someone to come deal with his idiot of a partner. 

“Sorry guys, sorry Min, thank you for not stabbing his sorry ass,” Dietrich says, eyeing Pagan warily as he drags Ramey backwards off the table and hustles him away. Pagan just watches them both with hooded eyes as Dietrich steers him out, steadfastly ignoring his slurred complaints.

“If he’d done that to you,” Pagan says conversationally, under the cover of the music and chatter that’s already starting back up, “they’d be arresting me and our dear friend Ramey would be laying on this table dead with four inches of Dome cutlery sunk into his frontal lobe.” 

“Yeah, well…maybe we oughta just leave before there’s another chance of that happening, let them get back to raising hell without us.”

“Hmm, you have a point.”

“But Pagan…oh my god, that shitbag’s _face_ …”

 

They’re leaning against each other and laughing as they walk back to their quarters, not even really buzzed, except the kind of buzzed that comes from having fun with not so good company after a triumphant kind of day. Pagan wipes his eyes, still chuckling. He opens the door to his half of the closet and grabs a hanger to put his new jacket on, but before he hangs it up he examines it more closely. “I’m never, _ever_ going to fucking wear this godawful tacky thing,” he says, with warm fondness, running his hand over the sheepskin lining affectionately before putting it away. 

“Well, it’s the thought that counts. They are pretty fucking awful, I agree,” Ajay says, hanging up his own. He’s looking forward to a quiet night, maybe finding an old holo for them to watch or something. He still has that chocolate bar from when he first got to the Shatterdome, has been saving it for a special occasion; they could split it in a little celebration of their own. 

As he’s thinking this, Pagan starts rummaging around, pulling out some of his nicer shirts and humming happily.

“I think I might go out for a bit tonight.” 

He…doesn’t invite Ajay to go with him. He catches an image from Pagan then, of bars and brothels and fancy clubs, sweltering neon-lit Hong Kong nightlife, perhaps catching someone’s eye and going home with them.

And that…it’s like ice water down his back, and he tamps that reaction down as fast as he can. Why would that upset him? Pagan wants to go out, hook up, have some fun, what of it? Why should he give a shit? 

Ajay doesn’t know why Pagan’s thinking about brothels for, it’s not like he has to pay for it, like he can’t have just about anybody he wants. Handsome, distinguished guy like him, tall and fit and oozing money, and only Ajay knows how crazy he is. Nobody cares how nuts you are for just one night anyway.

He’s a fucking King turned Jaeger pilot, for fuck’s sake. Anybody he wants, anytime he wants it. 

Ajay doesn’t know why that hurts him so much, why watching Pagan cheerfully picking out night-out-on-the-town clothes makes his belly furl up into a tight knot. All he knows is that he doesn’t want to watch him get ready, showering and shaving and perfectly applying his makeup and his fancy cologne in the quest to go get some. Jesus.

He pushes past him and drags his gym bag out of his half of the closet. “Gonna go work out,” and it comes out sounding much more strained than he meant it to.

“Hmm? Oh, all right,” Pagan says, not really paying much attention.

“Have fun, or whatever.” Sharp and bitter, he can’t help it, and his tone finally makes Pagan look up from the two shirts he’s trying to decide between.

“Ajay, is something the matt…”

And Ajay lets the hatch close between them before he has to answer that.

 

Ajay pushes himself hard in the gym, much harder than he usually does. He spends hours at the free weights until he’s wobbly all over, feeling sorry for himself. Or something, he has no idea. It’s not like they’re not both grown adults, with needs and shit; he could go out himself, if he really wanted to, if he put in the time request.  
But probably that’s just wishful thinking. It’s not like he really could; he doesn’t have anything decent to wear, and certainly can’t afford anything of Pagan’s caliber. A couple of pairs of jeans, regulation t-shirts...everything he owns in the world fits into one duffel. He’s nothing, and nobody, to draw anyone’s eye.

Least of all, somebody like him.

Pagan’s right, he can hit one hell of a self-pitying spiral sometimes. Pathetic. He levers himself off the bench, body aching, and throws twenty more pounds on the fucking bar. 

\----------------------------------


	9. The Gleaming City

\----------------------------------

Ajay doesn’t realize that all the way across town, Pagan is sipping a particularly fine whiskey on the rocks, in one of Hong Kong’s nicer nightclubs, a place of smoked glass and chrome. He’s politely pretending to listen to an amazingly attractive young woman from Guangzhou wax poetic about the art scene in this part of the city, her rather well-endowed chest occasionally pressing against his arm…

…and wonders how much longer he’s going to mourn. If he’ll ever feel anything again. Intelligent, pretty, clearly and unambiguously interested in him…and he feels nothing one way or the other. 

He’s bored out of his skull and definitely not going to accept what’s on offer, and so politely excuses himself, only to be accosted by a fellow of the artfully tousled, hipster variety. This one decides to just go straight to groping him, probably drunk. Which of course, is rude and boring, but he quickly changes his mind about his prospects when Pagan rolls his eyes and jams his thumb into the pressure point on the wrist of the offending hand. The second time tonight he’s had to ward off unwanted grabs at his person.

Pagan sighs. All of this nonsense is definitely not what he wants. He has no idea what he wants, but it surely isn’t this. 

He steps out onto the street and the sultry night air is like a slap in the face after the air-conditioned club, like a giant animal breathing its hot breath on him. It occurs to him that he’s spent more than half his life in Kyrat, in that crisp, high-altitude air, where it snows even at mid-summer. There’s so much more oxygen here but the thick humidity makes it feel like it’s hard to breathe. 

He wants a cigarette, which is also ridiculous; he hasn’t smoked in twenty years. It’s this place, all those old memories, like clothes that don’t fit him anymore. 

Pagan sighs again and starts walking, wandering down glittering streets.

_Ishwari, my love, I’m going to have to let you go. I’m going to have to put that weight down, the weight of what we had. I used to be able to carry it better, but it’s gotten to be so heavy. I can’t do it anymore._

His hand brushes against his wallet, where her letter resides. 

_But the thing is, I don’t know how. Twenty-five years, I waited for you. We had two good years, my dear, two good years, and then a whole fucking ocean between us for the next couple of decades. I have to stop waiting for you, you’re gone, you’ve gone; you always were gone. There was never any chance for us, was there? Not really._

_But I never did know how to let go of things._

His wanderings have brought him down a narrow street into one of the red-light districts, bodies for sale everywhere. It’s the world’s oldest profession, but still a strange idea to him, always has been; this selling of what ought to be freely given. Until he passes one establishment that has both men and women on offer, and then he understands something of why people come to these places. 

Out on the sidewalk out front is a gorgeous young man who looks startlingly like Ajay, so much so that Pagan has to do a double-take.

He knows what it is that he wants, now.

When he meets that young man’s eyes from across the street, Pagan reaches for him without even thinking about it, his mind yearning to meet Ajay’s, to rub happily against his in greeting. Just as it does every morning as they’re waking up, and every time they see each other. 

He meets nothing, of course, a disconcerting blank. 

_They’ve changed me. The fucking PPDC. I’m not what I was…neither of us are. And you feel so lovely and terrifying all at once. You, always touching my mind._

Before he can really process that, the guy interprets the eye contact as a come-ahead and saunters across the street to where Pagan is standing, hands in his pockets and a little hard grin. The closer he gets the less he looks like Ajay and the younger he grows. No more than a boy, really. 

“Hey man, whatcha lookin’ for tonight?” He says, in Cantonese. His grin grows a bit wider.

Pagan responds in kind. “Nothin’ in particular, but say I want everything. What’s your going rate?” 

The boy recoils a little when he hears Pagan’s accent. 

“Man, you Triad? I don’t fuck Triad guys, too much trouble. Trouble follows those assholes everywhere.”

“Nah. Well, not anymore, anyways. Ain’t worked for the gangs in a long fucking time.” He may have walked away decades ago, but that time in his life still sits heavy in his mouth.

“Well man, you don’t much look like it, that’s true,” he says, taking Pagan in head to toe, “but you sure do fuckin’ sound like it. But whatever. Say fifteen-hundred.”

About two hundred US. Pagan thinks he’s selling himself short. He’s not as handsome as Ajay, but he’s ridiculously good looking all the same.

“Yeah? You cuttin’ me a deal because I sound like an old gangster?” Pagan laughs at himself. “What’s the going rate for foreigners?”

The boy’s dark eyes glint in amusement. “Three thousand, of course.”

“Of course. Here,” he pulls out his wallet, thumbs through it, and extracts a wad of cash. He snags the boy and pulls him closer and drops it into his shirt pocket. 

“There, there’s three thousand. Take a coupla hours off, go do something fun. Grab a coffee, go catch a movie or something. Spend some time with somebody you actually give a shit about.”

The kid is taken aback. “Really? Wow...okay. Well, thanks.” He still looks confused, but he leans closer to Pagan.

“You sure I can’t do nothing for ya? Not like it’d be a hardship or anything…hot guy like you? I mean, damn, _look_ at you...”

That surprises a wry laugh out of Pagan. 

“Nah, just take it and go have fun. You remind me of somebody I know, somebody I love...somebody I don’t really wanna fuck, you get what I’m saying?”

“Heh...yeah, I get what you’re saying. Well, if you ever change your mind about that guy and he don’t take care of you right, you come on back to me, ‘cause _damn..._ ”

“Fuckin’ flatterer. Get outta here before I change my mind.” Pagan chuckles again, waves a hand to shoo him off.

 

What he wants is someone who actually gives a shit about him, and he won’t find that here, not anywhere in all of this gleaming, sweating city. 

What he should have done was brought Ajay with him, and they could have hit every food stand in Mongkok. That would have been much more fun. Cold beer and those little squid on sticks, he hasn’t had those in ages. 

But perhaps not. 

When he’d taken him out before, he’d asked Pagan if they were on a date, and...didn’t sound at all happy about the prospect. He’d briefly thought of saying yes, just to be an ass about it.

He doesn’t know what any of that means, or if it means anything at all. Too complicated. 

Pagan strides on, down dark streets and alleyways, not thinking much, not wanting to think, particularly. 

Just walking.

 

\---------------------------------------

 

When Ajay walks into their room, it’s to darkness. The only light on is the nightlight in the bathroom, and Pagan’s phone is playing something sweet and soft and sad…and Pagan himself is in the middle of the room moving to it, just swaying alone there in the dark with his arms around himself, his eyes closed, jacket still on but shirt halfway unbuttoned. A solitary slow dance in the dark. 

It’s late but he’s still back much, much earlier than Ajay thought he would be. Wasn’t sure if he’d be back tonight at all. 

Ajay doesn’t feel a lot from him; he’s not thinking much, just…low and fuzzed and a little lonely, which sparks a thrumming in his own chest he’s not going to think about. He tiptoes in and sets his gym bag down, not wanting to bother him, just watching him in the low light. 

He’s flat-out beautiful, like this. There, he admits it, he’s fucking gorgeous, as he watches the expanse of Pagan’s bare chest and throat, pale against the dark silk of his shirt. The shadows moving over him are making him all planes and angles as he holds himself like he wishes someone else were doing it, lost in his own world.

Before Ajay can think much about what he’s doing, he moves close, reaching slowly, hand stroking down his back but barely touching. Waiting and giving him plenty of time to decide if he doesn’t want the intrusion, to see what he’ll do, if he’ll pull away. 

Pagan turns and places one hand on Ajay’s shoulder, the other on his waist and tugs him close. He hasn’t even opened his eyes. And he doesn’t just pull him in, he pulls him in full-length, fuck, pressed together and touching everywhere. Ajay ends up with one hand on his bare chest, the other arm around his waist, up under his jacket. Like his subconscious can’t quite decide; push him away, or pull him in even closer. 

But he’s the one who reached for Pagan in the first place.

Pagan still hasn’t even looked at him. Just wants him close, for some reason. And damn, he smells good...woodsy, spicy smell from his clothes, his cologne, a hint of whiskey, a hint of sweat. Just him, his own familiar Pagan smell. Him, and nobody else. He just…had a drink or two alone and then came back? Something in him eases at that realization, which is ridiculous. 

The two of them swaying there together to that song is starting to feel distinctly dreamlike, like he’s a figment in a dream that’s Pagan’s having, maybe. He also strongly suspects that he’s just a placeholder for someone else, and Pagan’s eyebrows furrow as he catches a bit of that feeling from him. 

Ajay lets it go. 

It doesn’t matter, if it’s even true. All that matters is that Pagan is warm against him, and that they’re alone here and no one else and nothing else matters right now, no judgment, just them, and he feels Pagan relax a little against him. 

Ajay rests his head against his, not thinking much either, just appreciating the solid warmth of another human being under his hands. It’s been awhile, since he’s touched somebody like this, or been touched, had gentle hands on him. Combat training doesn’t count, with him and Pagan doing their best to pummel each other into the mats. 

That doesn’t matter either. That’s out there, under bright lights. This is something else. 

The longer this goes on the more surreal it feels, like he’s losing himself in it when he becomes aware of the feeling of Pagan’s breath against his neck, the way that his heat is soaking into him, right through his silk shirt and through Ajay’s thin t-shirt, the gentle rasp of his chin against his jaw. 

Not feeling anything besides that warm, fuzzed feeling and not thinking and not even realizing he was going to do it until he was done, Ajay runs his hand up into the short bristly hair on the back of Pagan’s head and nuzzles into his throat and _kisses_ him, hot and open-mouthed, right where his blood beats under the skin. Pagan goes stiff under him in surprise. Ajay’s eyes fly open. _Fuck._

And Pagan pulls away from him, gently setting him back at arm’s length with hands on his shoulders.

“I’m…” _so sorry,_ was what Ajay was going to say, but Pagan moves close again, and gently, chastely brushes his lips against his forehead, before moving away altogether. 

_Don’t be, my boy._ And that seems as much as he wants to discuss it.

Ajay watches him walk away and pick up his phone and change the music to something bouncy and Bollywood, watches him go into the bathroom and take off his nice clothes and wash his face and brush his teeth with the door open, just like he does every night before bed, completely unruffled, completely _normal._

While Ajay stands there, stomach churning with something unidentifiable.

Since he’d already showered at the gym, he just goes ahead and lies down, and Pagan joins him a few minutes later, stretching and scratching his bare stomach with a yawn before he climbs in beside Ajay, settles with a sigh, just like every night. 

Ajay’s mind is stunned and roiling at the same time. What in the fuck _was_ that? 

Usually it’s Pagan’s mind that’s running and running, full of shit like _that fucking song won’t get out of my head, what was the name of it again? And anyway how does Ajay still not know what a honey badger is, he should just Google it, we should Google everything, and how does the internet even work, anyway?_ And on and on and _on._ Ajay’s gotten used to tuning him out, when he gets going. But now it’s his own mind that won’t shut up.

“Now Ajay, I thought you wanted to _sleep._ ” Warm, but with a hint of annoyance as he yawns pointedly again.

“I…” Sorry wants to come out again, but he also doesn’t want to keep saying it, or draw attention to what he did. “How was your night out?” he settles for instead.

“Boring. So boring. I had a couple of drinks, walked around for a bit, came back. We should have gone together, hit all the food stands. That would have been awesome.” He grins then, but it has a little edge to it. “Unless that would have been too much like a _date_ for you, dear boy.”

Ajay blinks at that. “You’re so weird sometimes. I thought you were going out to…you know.”

“Find company for the evening? Is that what you’re trying to get at?” He yawns again, muffles it in the blanket. “Yes, well…nobody out there worth the having, I suppose. Or just not in the mood. Bored to fucking tears. So I came back.”

Ajay lies there and processes this.

“Pagan?”

“Mmm?” he grunts, drifting off already.

“I’m glad you came back.” Ajay whispers it at him. He can’t believe he’s saying this out fucking loud. “I don’t know why it bothered me.”

“Nobody out there gives a shit about me,” he mumbles, as if this explains everything. Ajay guesses that to him, it does. Since they’re doing the touchy-feely thing this evening, he reaches out and gently ruffles Pagan’s stupid hair where it’s sticking out from under the blanket, smoothes it back down. Pagan doesn’t even twitch, already deeply asleep. He only really sleeps when he’s beside Ajay. Only trusts Ajay to watch over him, can only let go and fall deeply asleep when he’s there.

Not a bit tired now, he lays there and watches Pagan sleep the sleep of untroubled, peaceful people, people who are not a bit flustered by the fact that their almost-stepsons want to kiss them. Not welcoming it, certainly; he’s made that clear as crystal, but not a bit troubled by it.

Ajay sighs. He doesn’t even really know _why,_ not really.

 

\---------------------------------------


	10. Scythe

\---------------------------------------

 

After a week of training in Victoria Bay and swinging at fake Kaiju targets and running sim after sim, they get put on the on-call active duty roster. A week after that, they get their first taste of what they’ve been training for for so long. A Class II, perfect for a new team, with three Jaegers on backup if needed.

Just like their Jaeger’s namesake, they’re chomping at the bit. They do a little jog just to work the nerves out, the Kaiju still out a ways, a mere blip on the HUD radar. Pagan will flip the radar off as soon as they get visual. They’re fifty-fifty split on the legs right now, and they just can’t stay still. Moving in perfect accord, but both of them a little lost in a kind of savage joy, the urge to rend and tear and fuck that thing up, a merging of Pagan’s wild intensity and Ajay’s laser focus.

The Honey Badger. Small, but fierce.

Tendo Choi feeds them his team’s gathered intelligence data that they’ll need for this fight.

“Okay boys, here’s the long-scan images. The science guys are calling this one ‘Scythe,’ you can probably see why already…other than those weird arm blade things this one seems like a fairly routine Class II, as far as we can tell. But be careful, you can never be too careful with these shitheads. Just when you think you’ve got it figured, they pull some dirty trick. Stay safe out there.”

“Yeah Tendo, we’ll be careful. Ghale out.”

Him and Pagan examine the images together.

“Look at its build,” Pagan says. “Slender, not bulky, even down to the tail. Built for speed, balance... like us. Much like us. Actually, look at this tail again.”

“It’s not a swimmer,” Ajay says, at it occurs to them at the same time, two minds harnessed in tandem. “Or at least, not a very good one, like the others. Not like they usually are.”

“We can use that, my boy! It’s not a strong suit of ours either, but if we can figure out a way to meet it out there, ambush it, come at it from underneath…well, it’d be one hell of a surprise, wouldn’t it?” and as soon as he says it he’s pulling up the bathymetric maps, trying to figure the best intercept route for them.

 

It’s quiet down deep.

 

The view out of the conn-pod’s screens is flat, murky blue in all directions except to their left, where the rocky outcropping that they’re using to navigate is almost close enough to brush against. At their right is a drop off deep enough to be a blue so dark it might as well be black. It gives Ajay the absolute creeps, so he resolutely doesn’t look that way. Pagan likes it even less than he does, but in contrast he keeps glancing at that abyss, like he expects ambush from that direction and needs to keep an eye on it. Like some thing from his nightmares made real is going to come for them out of those black depths. Ajay shivers and holds him in the Drift, nuzzles at his face to distract him. In their mutual gold space he’s holding Pagan and Pagan is holding him as well, hands stroking his back comfortingly, but in the cold, physical world Ajay is monitoring the position of the Kaiju and not taking his eyes off of the Dome’s relayed radar feed. It’s not as precise as the Badger’s onboard radar system would be, but humanity learned early on that the Kaiju can sense the pings somehow and track a Jaeger by it. They’re focused on silent running.

“Forty-five minutes of air remaining, and…mark,” Pagan says quietly, monitoring that and their position and the maps. The blue dot of Pagan’s chosen intercept point glows in the HUD, along with the green one that is them in the Badger, and the lurid red of the Kaiju, Scythe. The three of them converging on that bright blue dot.

 

Not long now.

 

The climb up that underwater rock wall is a long one, made longer by the fact they have to be so quiet and careful. The Kaiju are so good at sensing vibration, and water carries those waves so well that the climb up to the sandbar becomes a painfully slow crawl. A precision crawl, and finding finger-and-toeholds that will support the Badger’s tonnage isn’t easy either.

“Fifteen minutes of air remaining…mark,” Pagan says, and Ajay can hear the strain in it, can feel the strain in him. In both of them. They’re okay though…they’re okay. Nearly there.

They wait, just under the surface, clinging to the rock like a monkey. Right above them is the sandbar that they intend to take this thing on, like an ambush predator in a jungle.

“It just passed the thousand meter mark,” Ajay says, more for Base than for Pagan, but saying things out loud helps keep them focused on what they’re doing and not on the trickle of sweat that’s threatening to run into Pagan’s eye, a tiny annoyance. Easy to get lost in that kind of stuff. He’s sweating too, profusely. They’re not yet used to the mental and physical load of being in the Badger for hours like this, tired before the fight’s even started. Hopefully they’ll be able to finish it fast; that’s what they’re gambling on, with this maneuver. “Nine hundred meters and closing. Dead-on for the rendezvous point.”

Nothing to do but watch, and wait, in thick and sweaty tension. His leg begins to cramp, and he carefully, carefully switches off with Pagan and shakes it out, and just as carefully takes that control back, settling the Badger’s foot more firmly into the crevasse.

“It’s picking up speed,” Pagan says sharply, and he’s right…it must be moving in huge bounds along the same rock shelf they’re hanging onto. Seven hundred meters. Six. Five. Closing so fast. It’ll be onto the sandbar in seconds.

They crouch, muscles and hydraulics like rubber bands ready to release and fire them upwards into that thing’s face. But the extra force applied to the rock on Ajay’s side is just too much for it, and it snaps under the weight of the Badger’s splayed metal foot with a sharp, vibrating crack. Pagan winces, shoulders hunched. The Badger hunches in turn.

Above them, a giant, screeching roar.

 _Fuck…go go go!!_ Ajay all but yells in their heads, and the Badger is surging up, two mighty, scrabbling leaps up the rock and they’re on the sandbar and launching themselves along with a spray of what feels like half the ocean into Scythe’s fearsomely toothy and reptilian face.

But it’s ready for them, ready and waiting.

God, that thing is fucking fast, Ajay has time to think before it’s on them with a shriek, way faster than the Class II’s usually are. It’s fast and it’s strong and before they can slide out of the way it has one of those bladed hooks tangled up in the hilt of their sword. Instead of fighting with it the way that he thinks it wants, Pagan just opens their hands and lets the sword go. That costs them their advantage in reach, but he can always pick it back up again, unlike the fancier but more unwieldly segmented gauntlet-mounted swords that the other Jaegers use. Pagan likes the low-tech aspect of it, fought the designers on it until they gave him what he wanted. They train with sticks, for fuck’s sake. The simpler, the better, is how Pagan sees it.

Pagan lets the sword drop, and they engage their own claws and drive them at the Kaiju’s ugly lizard face. They’re also faster than the Kaiju was expecting, it seems, as it recoils with a roar and barely manages to avoid getting skewered by those hardened steel blades.

The thing gets one of those hooked blades around the Badger’s neck and shoulder and yanks them off balance, attempts a leg sweep that Pagan sees coming a mile off and they block but it’s a distraction, a diversion as Scythe manages to snake its head in close and sink its jaws down on the left shoulder in a rending of steel plating and an intensely painful jolt through the drive suits.

The PPDC found that having the suits cause actual pain in proportion to the damage the Jaeger takes made the pilots faster, better, more evasive, but Pagan can’t quite suppress the hoarse bark of pain that’s forced out of him as his bad shoulder is compressed in a white-hot blast of searing agony, nearly driving him to his knees. Ajay feels it almost as strongly, connected as they are.

That shoulder is a weak point and the fucking Kaiju went right for it. Lucky shot. There’s no way it could have known about Pagan’s old gunshot wound in that shoulder that never healed quite right. Ajay had felt the soreness and stiffness in it when they’d gone too hard in the Combat Room but Pagan had refused to favor it or pull his blows because of it, knowing that training like it was weak would just make him all the weaker on that left side, and that might put them in danger some day.

“Left arm thirty percent functionality; thirty-eight percent power, twenty-four percent neural interface integrity,” Pagan grinds out between clenched teeth as he runs the diagnostics. Ajay takes full control of the legs and dances them away as Pagan tests the mobility of the arm, bracketed in red light in the HUD from shoulder to wrist.

“Badger, this is Base, do you read? Do you require backup?” Choi’s disembodied voice comes through the speakers, just a little concern leaking past the professional tone.

 _We still have some tricks up our sleeve yet,_ Pagan thinks at Ajay as he reaches with the other arm and delicately probes fingers into the damaged joint. There’s something making it hang up on the rotation, a piece of bent armor plating or something.

“Negative Tendo, that’s a negative…we’re all right. Hold backup,” Ajay answers.

 _God, it’s one of the thing’s fucking teeth,_ Pagan thinks, yanking it out. In a sudden blast of rage he flings it at the Kaiju, bellows his anger at it, his pain. Their pain. It hurt Ajay too. And that he won’t tolerate. _Let it come, dearest boy. Let it come right fucking at us._ And Pagan just…sinks in the gold the way that he can, so deep, and it feels…god, it feels like chests and bellies and arms and hips pressed together, like he’s melting into Ajay, like they’re melting into each other, safe and warm in the center of a maelstrom of heat and light.

And in that moment, Ajay understands.

Scythe, seeing its prey with that dangling, injured arm, circles them, roaring its triumph. They wait, so deep inside each other’s minds that Choi and his crew are having trouble sorting out their individual brainwaves. They wait as time seems to stretch, entwined with each other…and the Kaiju turns. It turns and rushes that vulnerable side, just as Pagan predicted it would do. Just as Ajay did, that first day they met. Closer, closer. Almost on them, twenty feet of hardened bone aimed at their throat. Almost.

 _Now,_ Pagan whispers, and it reverberates through Ajay, through both of them, a shivering intensity.

Like that dance in the dark, Pagan moves and Ajay is right there with him, entwined together and he knows that pivot point, can feel it, can feel the exact amount of force necessary as they find their grip and swing Scythe around, using its momentum against it and slamming it hard into the sand. Flat on its back, just as Ajay was that day. The gauntlet blade nearly touching its flattened reptilian nose, just as Pagan’s staff was nearly touching Ajay’s throat.

Except today, Pagan keeps going, they’re both driving those steel blades into the thing’s face as it shrieks, as flesh rends and bone crunches. The Badger’s claws pierce through the back of its ugly head and out the other side, burying in the sand as a noxious blue puddle forms and smokes under it.

 

Done. It’s done.

 

Out there on that sandbar, it’s just the two of them alone with a dead monster. They go through the shutdown checklist together a little stunned, a little numb, maybe, and soon even the Badger’s operating hum ceases. Just the sound of wind and waves as they climb out of the top hatch to wait for the Dome to come pick them up, both of them trembling in the aftermath of all that adrenaline.  Soon, the air will be full of the sounds of the transport helicopters and the science department guys swarming over Scythe’s corpse like scavengers, to learn all they can. But for right now it’s just him and Pagan and sea and sky, as Pagan eases himself down to the deck with a groan, chest still heaving with exertion and with his good arm cradling the injured one.

They’re still more closely bonded than they would otherwise be; they always are, after a session in the Badger. It takes a little while to separate again. And they went deeper than usual.

They might always have to go that deep, to survive.

All Ajay knows is that it feels weird to not be touching him somehow, but they’re locked into the suits. Exhaustion drags at him as he crawls over to Pagan and unlocks his helmet; that, he can do. He can feel Pagan’s gratitude glowing warmly as the sea breeze ruffles his sweaty hair. It would have hurt to reach up and do it himself. He pulls his own off and lies down beside him and wriggles with a scrape of carbon fiber until he can lean his head against Pagan’s. Pagan sighs at that contact, at the removal of the small anxiety that not touching each other creates.

“My boy, that was a hell of a thing, wasn’t it?” Pagan says, when his breathing has slowed somewhat.

They watch the sky together, the light fading towards sunset golds.

This time, there’s not a lot of celebratory feeling afterwards, back at the Dome as they climb out of the drivesuits covered in sweat; just a lot of exhaustion, the desire to take a shower, the desire to get heat and liniment on that shoulder, the _aching_ desire for a cold drink. Ajay can’t sort out whose wants are whose…doesn’t matter though.

They’re still close enough and tired enough that Pagan almost followed him into the same shower stall in the Ready Room. He wouldn’t have particularly minded; there’s really not much of each other that they haven’t both seen by now, but Pagan pats at his shoulder muzzily and heads into the adjacent one.

Ajay goes down to the mess and grabs as many bottles of cold water and Gatorade as he can carry, beef jerky packets jammed in his pockets. When he gets back Pagan’s sitting on the bed still in his pink workout shorts and staring numbly at the wall, too tired to even get dressed.

“Doesn’t matter” _because we gotta put that stuff on your shoulder anyway._ “What color do you want?”

 _Orange. At least that’s also a flavor. I don’t know of anything that tastes blue…oh. How odd. I suppose it does taste blue, doesn’t it,_ as Ajay twists the cap off and takes a big gulp, Pagan picking up the flavor from him. “Oh, and you brought jerky too, thank you.” _Go ahead and eat before you touch the liniment_ “because I’m sure that it doesn’t taste very nice. I’m fine for a bit.”

As a compromise, Ajay tucks a few pieces in his mouth and goes in search of Pagan’s bag. Pagan throws him an image of which pocket it’s in, and he finds the little jar easily. He sits down on Pagan’s right side and slings a leg over him so he can get both hands on the other shoulder. Ordinarily it might be a little…weird to sit here like this, with his crotch right up against Pagan’s hip, but they’re both so tired that they’re leaning against each other to stay upright as Ajay works the liniment in, forehead resting against Pagan’s good shoulder.

“Don’t let me pass out on you,” Pagan warns, rough and gravelly. “You’re hurting too, all bruised up, I can feel it…I can’t let you just take care of me. Partners…oh, fuck,” hissed through his teeth as Ajay hits a particularly sore spot, “…partners and all that.” He rests his chin on the arm that Ajay has stretched across his chest, going limp as the massaging and the liniment start doing the trick. The relief of that pain floods warm and fluttery through both their minds, doubled when Pagan summons the energy to sit up and start working on Ajay’s shoulder.

This is it, Ajay thinks drowsily. This is how it’ll be from now on. They’ll be on call much of the time, trading off with other teams…but in a way all of them are always on call. No way to guarantee that the kaiju will stick to the rules that they themselves have made, that they won’t suddenly send five kaiju at once, or one really gigantic one, or thousands of shock troops through that breach in the world; and him and Pagan will have to be there. Will have to stand with the others and put their fragile human flesh in the way of armageddon…

Pagan flicks at his earlobe to snap him out of his dark thoughts. _Easy, boy…be easy._ “We’re not so fragile as you think. Only a few bruises today, eh? And that thing lying dead as dead can be out there.” Pagan tilts Ajay’s face with the back of his hand to avoid getting liniment on his chin, tilts his face so he can look him right in the eye. _We’re all right. Safe here, you and I. We’ll deal with whatever tomorrow brings when it gets here._ He leans up and places another of those nice but entirely chaste kisses on his forehead. “Your shoulder feeling better? Good! I don’t know about you, but I’m just about ready to pass out, it’s already past nine. D’you think that this will ever get less tiring,” as he stifles a jaw-cracking yawn. He wanders off to wash his hands with a vague and sleepy thought of _getting this shit in my eye would be fucking awful,_ not really expecting an answer from Ajay.

_…but they’ll keep us locked in here, until the next time they need us to perform on command…_

Ajay’s pretty sure he wasn’t meant to hear that, that layer of his thoughts under the superficial one about washing his hands, but it’s not like they can keep secrets from each other anymore. Especially now, right after they were so deep together. In each other.

He even detects Pagan’s faint bitter feeling that goes with the words as he climbs in bed. Well…bittersweet anyway, his thoughts about how much he loves this, loves every bit of it, loves feeling needed and important and like he’s making a positive difference, while at the same time he loathes feeling used, and trapped, and especially loathes risking their combined lives, but especially Ajay’s. Doesn’t trust the Defense Corps to have their best interests at heart.

Perversely, he wants to argue the point after he goes and washes his own hands and climbs in bed with him, after he complained about it himself.

“Listen, I’m a soldier, Pagan. I knew what the score was when I signed up,” which makes Pagan’s heart hurt, a little ache in that gold place, a little sadness in his dark eyes.

“You are worth so, so much more than that, darling boy. So much more.”

But for once, he doesn’t feel the pang of his own bitterness that he used to feel every time he thought about the reasons that he signed up to do this. Somewhere along the line, that anger turned to pride. Pride in them, in what they can do. Pride in the Badger, and her techs and crew, all of them working to keep people safe.

 _Like you said, we’ll deal with what comes when it comes._ “Or did you not mean it?” Maybe a little sharper than he should have been. If anybody could figure out how to lie while actually sharing a mind with somebody, it would be Pagan.

Pagan gusts a sigh in the dark. “I meant it. I did. It’s the only way we’re going to make it through this, I think.” _But I don’t trust them, none of them. Just you, you know. Only you. And I’ll never lie to you, either to keep things from you or to spare your feelings._ “Ajay, you already know the worst of me. And somehow,” _you still care about me anyway._

It’s Ajay’s turn to sigh, but his is easier. “Yeah, I know it. I do.”

“So ignore an old man’s maudlin thoughts,” Pagan says, and pokes Ajay in the vicinity of his belly button with a hard finger.

“Oh please,” Ajay rolls his eyes. “Cut it with that shit. You’re not even fifty yet. You’re probably in better shape than I am, since you’ve been being tortured for longer by what the fuckin’ PPDC calls physical training.”

Pagan’s eyes gleam in the dark. “Perhaps you’re right,” he says, with a mean little grin, like he’s determined to prove Ajay right next time they’re in the Combat Room. Then, more soberly, “I’m glad they pushed all that PT though…the real thing was harder than what I was expecting.”

“Yeah. I really am proud of us, though.” Ajay reaches and pokes his flat stomach, gently though.

Pagan bats his hand away, also gently. Yawns again and rolls up in his half of the blanket. “I am too, dear boy. I am too.”

 

 

\----------------------------------------


	11. Duty and Devotion

\----------------------------------------

 

A couple of weeks later and Pagan’s on the phone with his people in Kyrat again, trying to straighten out some other mess. Ajay’s bored stiff and trying to be quiet while he’s talking, sprawled on the bed and trying and mostly failing to read a book on Pagan’s tablet. Their little desk is covered with reports and stacks of manila folders and papers covered with his florid scrawl. He’s currently doodling with an inexplicably gold and pink pen on them as he chomps vigorously on the toothpick in his mouth. A stack of seriously gnawed ones sits at his elbow, and Ajay watches as he tosses the splintered one onto the pile and snags a fresh one from the box.

_Your mother made me quit smoking, you know. So tempted to start again._

_You better fucking not. Shit’s nasty._

Pagan lets out a resigned sigh that’s appropriate for both conversations.

“Paul, I...I know it’s hard, that it’s been hard, and I’m sorry for that. But it’s all going to be all right, do you hear me? It will be all right.” Ajay’s surprised to hear real sympathy in his tone, real caring. “But you’ve got to cool it with your little parties, Paul. It just incenses the locals, _with good reason._ We need as much support as we can get at the moment, we need the villagers resisting the Golden...what? No…I said ‘what’ because I was really quite sure that I had misheard you...NO, I am absolutely NOT approving your fucking vacation leave, have you lost your goddamn _mind?_ Have you run mad? The lot of you are driving me insane...yes, I know that! What I also know is that Ajay Ghale and I and the rest of the Jaeger pilots are literally risking our lives to keep this fucking Kaiju invasion on its _knees,_ and we’re doing it Paul, we’re winning out here...yes, I _know,_ but the least you lot could do is save this one, teensy-tiny corner of the fucking planet while I do the rest! Goddamn it, I...no, I just feel like...I’m trying to delegate and rely on all of you over there, and you know that’s something that I’ve never been good at, and...yes Paul, I know, but without Noore, and...whatever is going on with Yuma, I need you more than ever. Just...try to make sure I have a country to come home to, all right? Fine, fine, tell Ashley I said hello and to be a good girl. Yes...well. Goodnight, Paul.”

He looks over at him with the toothpick still at the corner of his mouth, just like that first day. Guess he was stressed then too.  Hard and arrogant and trying to hide behind it.  “Oh Ajay, my dear boy, these incompetent imbeciles are killing me.” And he’s joking, but Ajay can still see the strain in his face, the stress and the exhaustion. He rubs at his face with both hands. “God, I need a drink.”

Their schedule has been punishing and even Ajay is feeling it, and Pagan’s been trying to do two jobs at once. They don’t have anything scheduled for a few hours though, if they skip dinner. They can always scrounge for food later, Gary can probably find them something.

“Hey, wanna take a nap?”

Pagan gives him an inscrutable look. _Naps are for children,_ he thinks at Ajay.

 _Fuck that, I’m tired._ “And besides, it’s cold out here and warm and soft over there, so why not? I’m more tired than hungry.”

He starts pulling his coveralls off and drapes it and his t-shirt over the desk chair so he can put them back on later and climbs into the bed. He’s not super exhausted or anything but he suspects...yep, now Pagan’s unbuttoning his shirt with a sigh. He _knew_ it, that he wouldn’t let himself rest unless Ajay is resting too. A small sacrifice, if it’ll get him to take a goddamn nap. Stubborn, he’s so fucking stubborn sometimes. Ajay needs him sharp and rested; they’re on the on-call roster for the next five days...but he also...just wants to see him happy and relaxed, is in the mood to take care of him a little, fuck it. And he has to admit to himself that he’s really gotten used to and likes this sleeping beside somebody every night thing, especially when they smell good and function as a space heater and never snore. So not really much of a sacrifice, if he’s honest. He tries to keep these thoughts low and quiet, because Pagan really doesn’t need his ego stroked that much.

Once Pagan settles with a little sigh like he always does, he’s out in about ten seconds. Ajay tucks one hand under his chin and lets the other stretch between them, extends his index finger, and barely touches Pagan’s shoulder with it. Then he lets himself drop off too.

 

\----------------------------------------

 

Now, when they Enter the Badger (what they call it in their collective mind, a running joke) it’s almost like a religious experience. They’re so tightly bonded, so deep in each other that even the J-Crew monitoring them finds it difficult to tell on their screens where one of them ends and the other begins. They Drift so deeply and easily on their own that it frees up much of the Badger’s neural processing capability that is ordinarily tied up with just linking the pilots together, and in this way they are able to control it in a way that few others have achieved. Ordinarily there is always a little lag time, and even the best piloted Jaegers are slow and clumsy compared to ordinary human movements.

Not the Badger.

They push that sleek Jaeger to its absolute mechanical limit and it moves like flowing water, a smooth blending of their combined efficiency and raw power. That sensation of of moving in perfect harmony is so addictive; a dance of destruction, ripping the enemies of the world into pieces like some avenging angel, like Shiva’s destroying fire, and it is so _right._

Ajay couldn’t explain with any words how it feels to be linked so tightly with Pagan in the heart of the Badger, in an absolutely unbreakable bond. To move with him in that dance, to feel him closer than a breath, like the air in his lungs, inside and out. The anticipation of that hot liquid pleasure and the sharing of it, the savage satisfaction of dealing messy death to their enemies like they were both born to do it, their singular purpose fulfilled in tandem. There are no words for what it feels like, but Pagan tries to nail it down with lots of fancy ones, like exquisite, and sublime…but they don’t even touch it.

Being linked that closely with the Badger’s thrumming power leaves no room for fear or worry or guilt or shame; no, that comes later, after they’re locked back in their little cage until the next time. At least that’s how Pagan feels about it, anger at being used, glowing contentment at being needed, his growing concern that the PPDC is setting up the program so that’s the only psychological release they get, the only freedom they get to feel is when they’re out there fighting and risking their lives. He chafes at it and worries at it in his mind until Ajay wants to slap him.

Not really. He’d rather kiss him. Or do something, _anything,_ to distract him. Especially since it’s not like they have a lot of choice in the matter. They’ve come way too far to back out now; he can’t and Pagan won’t. In way too deep.

They don’t talk about any of this, of course.

 

The sheer intensity of being in the Badger can only go on for so long before it starts really spilling over into their daily lives. Pagan can only really sleep if he’s beside Ajay now, but he refuses to intrude into Ajay’s space, arms wrapped tightly around himself. Half the time he’s turned away with his face pressed against the bulkhead. Ajay knows why, of course; he can feel it but they don’t talk about that either, especially when Ajay’s also trying to will down his own weirdly random and embarrassing erections...it seems to be a side effect of that close mind contact.

Neither of them realizes it, but when they’re asleep next to each other they’re both breathing in perfect sync, the blurred edges of their dreams touching.

Ajay wakes once with his lips pressed to the back of Pagan’s neck, his bare chest against the warmth of his bare back. He moves away immediately, but the smell of his skin, his hair lingers in his mind. Pagan makes a tiny discontented noise when he does it, still mostly asleep. And that…he can’t stay away, when he makes that sound. He spoons up carefully behind him and wraps an arm around him and holds him close.

And wakes alone in the morning, hard as a rock and cursing himself bitterly.

Another time, Ajay wakes from…from one of _those_ dreams with Pagan’s big hand splayed across his hip, warm and heavy, and it feels so good that Ajay almost shifts to his back so that it would rest on his dick instead, still muzzy with sleep and not knowing why he _shouldn’t._ But as he wakes just a little more, he remembers that the deep pool of glowing heated _longing, desire_ that he often feels in Pagan isn’t for him, it’s for someone that’s never going to be here, is never coming back again.  Not for either of them.

This thing that they have, this magical ability that they share that allows them to be the best pilot team in the PPDC, even with Pagan technically a civilian and him not even a Ranger yet is all because of Ishwari, and not him. The fact that it’s not is causing him more and more pain every day, something he certainly didn’t anticipate. It hurts Pagan too, that Ajay can’t be what he needs, can’t give him what he wants. Can’t be her, the only thing he’s ever wanted.

He can’t be her, as much as Pagan might want him to be. He can't be the one to heal that wound in him.  And _her_ is all he wants, so much that it takes Ajay’s breath away.  He swallows the lump in his throat and tries not to fucking cry, because of he does his distress will probably wake Pagan up.

He thought he knew what love was, what devotion was, before he fell into the hot gold of Pagan’s mind. 

Ajay gently, gently moves Pagan’s hand and gets up and goes into the bathroom, intending to take a shower. It’s only just past three but he’s not sleeping again anytime soon, and the hardness tenting his shorts is an embarrassment that he’s going to go ruthlessly quell with cold water. If he touches himself, Pagan will probably feel it.

He has every intention of turning the water down as cold as it will go, but he’s weak and he’s a coward and he should go find somewhere halfway across the facility to do this so that he doesn’t bother Pagan with it but he’s spinning the water to hot and has his hand on himself before he can make himself stop. He just hopes Pagan is soundly asleep, since he doesn’t feel much from him, just that low thrum of his presence. The first stroke of his hand feels so good that he’s trying not to gasp, the hot water beating down on him a counterpoint to the cool tile against his forehead.

Oh, and this isn’t going to take long, not when he can still feel the memory of Pagan’s big hand on his hip, and when and why did it become Pagan that he wants? Why does he want someone who is never going to want him back? He knows why, though. So volatile, and it was love him or hate him, all or nothing. So hard to be so close in that gold place, and not want the rest of it, _everything._ So hard not to reach for him out here, too.

He tries his best to not think about it, not think about that dream, not think about him, not think at all, just stroke and stroke and concentrate on that sensation of his own hand moving. It still feels so good that he has to prop himself with his other forearm so that he can push his face into it to muffle his moans.

Suddenly, that link between them opens just a little in his mind, and oh _shit._ He’s going to wake Pagan up all the way with this, tries to stop but his hand won’t move away. Just, refuses to.  Unfortunately he senses it when Pagan feels his arousal and that bond flares open wide, hot and gold and he can feel Pagan’s sleepy confusion but he’s turned on as well, suddenly burning with it, blindsided by it.

Pagan’s touching himself now before he’s even awake enough to know why, has himself hot and heavy in his palm, oh _god_ , the echo of it threatening to steal his breath, and he can’t help it, he’s drowning in all that golden need and he can’t stop and his hand is on Pagan and Pagan’s hand is on him, is in him, IS his hand, moving together in sync, gasping in sync, trembling and coming undone together in perfect sync.

 

This is something that they’re really, _really_ not going to talk about.

 

Especially after Ajay finishes scrubbing in humiliation that he’s sure Pagan can feel, and he comes out and sees Pagan with his arms locked around himself, back to him, pressed into the bulkhead as tightly as he can go. Shame rolling off of him. Ashamed, when it was all Ajay’s fault. He doesn’t know how to fix it, what to say, a hot lump in his throat.

Ajay decides to sleep in the chair for the rest of the night, trying to give him physical distance if nothing else. Half-hoping that Pagan will roll over and ask him in his sleep-rough voice what he thinks he’s doing, come get in, that chair is bloody uncomfortable, you must be cold. Hates himself for that pathetic hope.

Pagan doesn’t.

You can’t hide anything in the Drift, can’t keep secrets, and they’re in the echo of it most of the time. They’re bonded so strongly now, in or out of the Badger, that distance is the only way to shut each other out.

 

Ajay eventually drifts off into a shallow and gritty sleep. He dreams, and in his dream him and Pagan are at some fancy party that’s getting wild, pounding music and a tableful of drugs and shit that reminds him of his own bad old days. Pagan’s doing lines right off the big pile and he can _feel_ how much he hurts inside. An icy tightness in his chest, that ripping anguish that he’s going to numb even if it kills him, he doesn’t give a shit if it does, why should he? He never did in the past. Why should either of them care? He stares at Ajay with a hard grin like a challenge, dancing in place a little. Fuck it, might as well, as he grabs the rolled-up bill out of Pagan’s unresisting hand and slams a couple of rails himself. It doesn’t smell like anything, which is weird.

Sudden, hot rage spiking in his head, a little frightening in its intensity. How dare he drag him into this fucking painful bullshit. “I don’t care about you. I don’t give two shits about you,” he tells Pagan, finger in his face. “And nobody can _fucking make me,_ do you hear?” But he doubts Pagan can hear anything at all, as blood drips gently from his nose, his eyes wide and blank. Ajay grabs him and smears it hard across his slack face with his thumb. Everything’s starting to feel a little sharp-edged and unreal, but he’s still pissed off, still _aching,_ and it’s all this asshole’s fault.

Pagan’s not okay, _really_ not okay, overdosing with his skin gone all red and hot but he can still feel that pain so maybe it’s his instead, his, theirs together, he can’t separate it out but he doesn’t _care,_ as Ajay shakes him a little, he doesn’t care, _they can’t make him care_ …

He jerks himself awake with one terrified sob, with Pagan’s hand on his shoulder, his other hand raking his sweat-drenched hair back, so gently. Ajay stares up at him with his chest heaving, utterly disoriented. Takes in his sleepy but clear-eyed concern, his unbloodied face.

“Shhhhh. Just a bad dream,” Pagan murmurs. “Only a dream, it doesn’t…it doesn’t _mean_ anything,” and by that Ajay understands that he saw and felt that dream too. _Everything,_ as his face heats again in shame at the little spike of hurt he can feel from him.  But all he says is “Come back to bed, it’s all right,” soft and low like he’s a frightened animal that might bolt away from him. Pagan grasps his hand and tries to tug him up, to get him to come and lie down with him. That idea is so overwhelmingly good that he moves with Pagan’s tugging and keeps on going, right into his arms. Pagan’s are around him and his are around Pagan and their minds are touching warm and calm and none of that was real.

This is real, Pagan sending _warm, warm sunshine, soft bed, us together and good dreams, us safe_ into his mind, until he resonates with it too, until there isn’t anything left of that nightmare and he can get a deep breath.  His galloping heart starts to slow, as Pagan’s thumb rubs a soothing circle into the back of his neck.

Real.

 

\----------------------------------------


	12. The Wild, Wild Sea

 

\------------------------------------

 

“We need a day off,” Ajay says the next morning, desperately. “I think the stress is getting to me or something, shit. At least a half-day. Just…time to chill the fuck out, you know?”

Pagan rubs at his face tiredly and checks the time. “I wholeheartedly agree, as it happens.” He taps at his phone rapidly.

“Oh fuck, don’t send him that…Jesus,” Ajay says in dismay. He can see the email Pagan’s composing in his mind, as clear as anything:

 

_Dear Marshal Pentecost And To Whomever Else It May Concern;_

_Ajay and I are taking the day off, a mental health day if you will, so don’t even **think** about bothering us._

_Ta for now! Pagan Min._

 

“Too late!” as Pagan cheerfully presses send. Ajay groans and collapses back onto the bed. “Oh, that’s a fine idea, my boy. Back to sleep with us!” He shoves Ajay’s legs out of his way and climbs back in. Ajay groans again and orients himself the right way, tugs the blanket out from under his ass and throws a fair half over Pagan. Too tired to argue about it.

Only the dark and quiet after that.

“Pagan,” he whispers. _Are we okay? After…are we okay?_

Pagan opens his eyes. He reaches over and brushes one finger along the side of Ajay’s hand, lets him feel the ease in his mind for himself.

He curls up a little, still upset...he can’t even really name what he feels. Just some kind of vague distress. _I hurt you._

_Shhh, go back to sleep darling boy. Everything’s fine._

All forgiven.

As the minutes pass, he can feel Pagan’s mind start the slow descent into sleep, his thoughts going soft and warm and scattered. It feels like a heavy blanket laid over his own mind, and it should feel disturbing to be dragged down like that but it never does; he loves that feeling, loves sleeping beside him, loves _him,_ so much…

 _Love,_ he picks up from him. _Close, safe…with you,_ Pagan thinks, soft and fuzzed. He reaches out and places his hand in the center of Ajay’s chest and leaves it there. He can feel his own heartbeat through Pagan’s hand, feel how it comforts him as he slides into sleep, into warm darkness. Mind still nuzzled close to his, Ajay follows him willingly.

When he wakes, Pagan’s reading a book on his tablet. He moved his hand from his chest but they’re still so close they’re nearly touching, the heat of his body soaking into him in the chill room. Everything soft and warm and good, and if he peeks through the familiar clutter of Pagan’s mind he can follow the story he’s reading, at least a little.

Contentment. They resonate with it together.

But eventually he has to get up to take a piss, to stretch stiffened limbs. It takes so much effort to throw the warm blankets back and scoot out into the comparable chill of the room. Winter or summer, doesn’t seem to matter; apparently Pentecost likes an even, dank cold the year round. He stretches, takes care of business and washes his hands. Pagan’s still reading, or at least just has his eyes focused in that direction because when he looks in his mind he’s stalled out, reading the same lines over and over again and thinking of taking a shower, maybe finding some food; just his brain running on idle.

 _Do you mind if I turn on the tv? Want to watch something?_ “I’ve still got that coffee and chocolate.”

“That sounds nice,” Pagan says a little absently, as he contemplates his bare toes and the song stuck in his head instead of the tablet.

Ajay goes over to the desk and digs around in the drawer for the remote to the holoscreen, digs around in his gear in the closet for his hoarded goodies, but when he straightens up with the stuff he finds himself…disappointed somehow. He was excited to share, but now that he has it in his hands it’s just a little bar of cheap chocolate and a couple packs of instant coffee. What kind of stuff is that to an actual king, who can have anything he wants? Maybe he built it up too much in his own mind, because now it just looks cheap. Paltry.

“Ajay…”. He sounds a little aggravated. “Yes boy, I am a King. Yes, I can generally get what I like whenever I like. But Kyrat is the top of the world, at the end of the world. Do you know what we have in abundance? Tea leaves and high-grade heroin. What we do _not_ have, is coffee and chocolate. Especially since we also have the _exceedingly_ good fortune to be in the middle of a world war against…whatever the Kaiju are. Aliens from another dimension or timeline or some such thing. Puts a real damper on international shipping and all.” Every bit as sharp and acerbic as he was when they first met. He clears his throat and goes on in a softer tone. “Anyway, what I’m trying to say is that, besides the pitiful burnt water that the mess refers to as coffee, I haven’t seen either of those delightful things in more than a year and that I’d like nothing better than to watch television and share them with you. If you’re still willing, that is. I think it sounds lovely.”

He means it. They can’t lie even about the little things to spare each other’s feelings, not anymore.

“Wanna go get us some cups then?”

While Pagan’s gone, Ajay picks up the remote and flips through the channels. He punches the button rapidly past the news stations, definitely not interested in anything there. He passes infomercials and soap operas, the dregs of daytime tv everywhere. Hong Kong or LA or Alaska, seems not much is different in that regard. Pagan comes back balancing two plastic coffee cups from the mess in one hand, a thermos with hot water in the other and settles himself back on the bed.

Something with bright colors catches his eye and Pagan sits up a little straighter beside him. There, on their own holoscreen, a Jaeger and a Kaiju battle together in a cheesy animated show. The pilots scream their lines in a terrible English dub as the Kaiju bellows. He sits there and blinks. On the one hand, it’s borderline insulting to see what they all work so hard to do here reduced to what is essentially a Saturday morning kid’s cartoon. On the other hand, it’s so surreal and awful and inaccurate that’s hilarious, a conclusion that Pagan comes to almost at the same instant he does. He bursts out laughing, rich and warm, laughs and laughs and _laughs_ until he’s wiping his eyes. They both laugh, Ajay rolling over and clutching his aching belly.. Pagan’s inability to stop keeps setting him off again, has him laughing until he’s wheezing, which gets Pagan going again in a release of tension that’s been a long time in coming.

Relief. Ajay looks up into his face and Pagan’s eyes crinkle with an easy smile, as easy as that laughter came. A chance to breathe, metaphorically.

While the Kaiju in the cartoon goes to town on the Sydney Opera House, Ajay carefully opens the wrapper to use as a plate and breaks the bar in half. Eaten with the coffee it’s decadent, rich and dark and delicious. Pagan hums happily, wriggling his toes a little, which never fails to make Ajay laugh.

Tired of the dramatically screaming Jaeger pilots, he picks up the remote again and starts flipping.

“Oh, that was what Hong Kong was like when I was born,” Pagan says idly, as he’s running through the movie channels. Most of them are in Cantonese with no subtitles so he can’t even tell what kind of movies they are, but his curiosity is piqued.

“This one? You seen it before?”

 _It’s been a long time. Some kind of romance, I don’t really remember_ “but it’s set in the sixties.” They watch it together for a while, until Pagan gets bored and starts playing a game on his phone, only half paying attention. The old cars and clothes are interesting, but he has to admit the pacing is…slow, to say the least. Lots of slow-motion shots of people walking past each other. Pagan translates for him when people do speak.

“Both couples are moving into that older woman’s house at the same time, and the movers keep getting their things mixed up,” Pagan says, without bothering to look up.

“Oh.” He watches for a while longer. “Pagan, this movie is so weird. Everybody’s dressed exactly the same and they’re all excited over a rice cooker.”

“Shh boy, they’re setting a scene. It was a big deal. By the time I came along, you were some sort of unlettered heathen if you still made rice in a pot on the stove.”

It’s nearly halfway through the thing before he figures out where the story is going, that one half of the married couple is cheating with the other half down the hall, and the lonely leftover halves are _also_ attracted to each other. That’s kind of interesting. A love rectangle maybe? But then he sighs, as the film cuts to yet another scene of the woman typing. She walks down to the noodle shop and may or may not brush against the object of her affections as he smokes in the stairwell. God. “Why don’t they just fuck already?” he blurts, startling Pagan a little.

“What?” Then Pagan laughs darkly, as he processes the question. “They’re trying to be just ever so bloody proper, to save face in front of the neighbors. So locked up in what other people will think or say that they’re willing to sacrifice whatever happiness they can find to fucking conformity.” He sighs, seeming to realize he’s going off on a tangent. “There are reasons that I left this place all those years ago. Having a price on my head was only one of them.”

Ajay can feel his mind heading to those dark corners, to pick and work at old shit that probably happened before he was born. To distract him, he says loudly, “Oh look, he may have just _touched her hand a little_ what will everyone think?! Fuck, better phone the morality police,” as Pagan chuckles.

Instead of translating faithfully, Pagan starts making up his own in boredom. “Oh Mrs. Chan! Oh Mr. Chow! Can you come help me unclog my sink? Mr. Chow, what lovely eyes you have! Mr. Chow, what could you be packing in your trousers…” He sniggers as Ajay shoves at him with a bare foot.

“You asshole, that’s not…whoa.” When his foot touches Pagan’s leg he can _understand_ what the people in the film are saying. Understands it through Pagan’s understanding, if he can hold onto the thread of it through the jumbled but warmly familiar clutter in his mind. “Whoa,” he says again. The novelty of it makes it worth watching again, as he leaves his foot pressed against Pagan’s leg. Freed of even marginal translation duties, Pagan goes back to his phone, occasionally picking up his empty coffee cup to sniff at the remains of that tantalizing smell.

This movie…what the actual fuck. As the story plays out to the end: “That’s it? That’s…that’s _all_ of it? They figure out they love each other and they just…don’t try any harder than that, to be together? Jesus _Christ,_ that’s fucking lame.”

Pagan laughs at his indignation. “Ah, so you’ve discovered a major rift in East versus Western cinema. Here, it’s the action scenes that are the fantasy, and the romance depressingly realistic.” He shrugs. “I prefer Bollywood myself. Why can’t both be fantastical?”

“If you can find something, I’m more than willing,” he says in disgust, and flips the remote at him. “It’s gotta be better than what I picked, fuck.”

Ajay sits there and thinks it over as Pagan distractedly runs through the channels. He made sure to move his foot and makes his thoughts as small and quiet as he can so Pagan might not hear him; sometimes that works, if they haven’t spent a long time in the Badger recently.

If that were him and Pagan, he’d do…shit, there’s not a lot that he wouldn’t do, to find him. Actually, they’d do whatever they wanted in the first place, fuck the rest of the world. It’s always been the two of them in this. He loves him. They love each other, and nothing could pry them apart, break up the team that they are.

He’s pretty sure that he’s also at least half _in_ love with him, not that it matters.

Pagan’s thumb stills on the remote as his shoulders stiffen…and then goes back to flipping through channels. Also still and quiet, like he’d heard nothing at all.

 

\------------------------------------

 

It’s been weeks since that mortifying shower incident that they don’t talk about, but Ajay’s little problem is getting worse, not better. The wanting, the raw _need_ is driving him crazy. Most of the time it’s fine. He can be close and touch him and laugh with him and be his friend, sleep next to him without this burning feeling, without yearning for him. But when it does happen he has to just get out of range, the only reliable way to shut each other out.

This time he’s in a storage closet all the way across the facility from where Pagan is, and even not being able to feel the low hum of his presence hurts a little. But here, he can at least think of him all he wants, imagine those big hands all over him, those long fingers pressing inside him, hot and slick. He’s never had that before, never wanted it before…never wanted someone _inside_ him like that, god, but his body doesn’t seem to care. That’s what he wants. He imagines what Pagan would look like in the shower, if he’d come in and joined him that day, hair darkened with moisture and beads of water on his skin, what he’d look like on his knees, eyes hot and dark and burning for him, all that need and desire for _him…_

…and not his dead mother.

His chest hitches with a little sob as he comes.

 

He wants too much, and he knows it. He already _has_ Pagan; lives with him, sleeps in the same bed with him, has him in his mind, his soul, touching his dreams, so deeply meshed in the Badger with him until even they can’t really tell themselves apart. He knows Pagan cares about him, loves him in his rough and selfish way.

But he doesn’t have his body, or his heart.

Never will, he _never_ will and he needs to stop before he ruins this near-perfect thing they have. This near-perfect thing that’s keeping the fucking _world_ safe.

But still…he’s a moth that keeps battering itself against glass, trying to get to him, unable to make himself care that Pagan’s hot flame is going to burn him up.

With some of the edge taken off, he can go back to their quarters and maybe get some sleep. Pagan’s coming out of the bathroom as he’s coming in, toweling his hair, and since Ajay went and hid and rubbed one out Pagan can sense his upset but not the why. Surprisingly he reaches for him, which he seldom does here in the physical world, not like this.

He wants to shove him away, doesn’t want his fucking _pity;_ it’s not like Pagan really wants to hold him, but because he’s weak and pathetic he tamps that anger and hurt down as best he can. He lets him pull him in close and lets himself lean there and relax against the solidity of Pagan’s bare chest, forehead against his neck, for exactly eight seconds before he forces himself to pull away. Too weak to not take what he can get, cataloging and filing away the scent of his warm, soapy skin for the next time he has to go find relief alone.  
Although it’s not like he has many chances to be alone anymore. In the middle of this personal shit, the PPDC seems hellbent on stressing them to maximum levels.

 

The two of them, their crew, and the Badger are all loaded onto one of the big carriers along with a few other Hong Kong Jaeger teams and Dr. Hannah, ostensibly to keep them all sane.  They're sent north to help Tokyo’s Shatterdome, as they keep seeing consistent attacks and several of their own Jaegers are out of commission.

Neither of them have ever been to sea, and the quarters on the carrier are beyond cramped. Their room in Hong Kong is pretty small, but this is a closet, with two tiny bunk beds that Ajay’s sure that his feet will hang off the end of. Pagan glances around and just sighs. Communal bathroom too, shared with this whole section.

“Which one do you want?” Ajay says, dropping his duffel in the corner. There’s nowhere else to put it. At least it’s not a dormitory. He belatedly remembers to hook a handle of it over a cleat in the wall, in case there are high seas so they won’t get pelted by his shit. It’s his turn to sigh.

“Oh…I don’t care. Whichever.” Pagan’s doing the same with his own duffel.

He ends up in the top bunk, Ajay on the bottom. It’s hot and uncomfortable, the mattress unforgiving, and his feet do indeed hang off the end. He can feel Pagan’s every shift of weight through the frame, can see his feet hanging off even further than his own. Ajay finally drifts into a restless doze when the captain’s voice bursts in over the intercom in a hail of static.

“Wakey wakey campers! Rough seas ahead, boys and girls! Make sure all your stuff is stowed, and all you Jaeger jockeys and crews are restricted to quarters until I give the all clear.”

She’s way too fucking cheerful for one in the morning, as Ajay consults his watch. The unfamiliar swaying motion increases until Pagan finally gives up, climbs down, and jerks his mattress irritably up and over the bedrail and flings it on the floor.

“It feels like a…a bloody trapeze or something up there.” He grabs the blankets and flings them for good measure. He flings himself down finally, eyes meeting Ajay’s. “I’m trying to be a good sport about this, I really am, my boy. But this is the fucking pits.” He rolls over, sounding more upset than actually angry.

Ajay reaches out with his mind and brushes at him gently until he relaxes a little.

_It’s cooler down there, I can feel it. Move over some._

Pagan obliges and scoots his mattress closer to the door; there’s just enough room to squeeze both of them in side by side that way. It’s much better like this, lower center of gravity and close to Pagan, a sentiment that he doesn’t care to scrutinize much. They’ve gotten so used to sleeping in the same bed that it feels weird not to. That’s all it is.

Pagan has his hands under his head, watching the ceiling joists sway. This ship-travel thing is seriously disconcerting, Ajay thinks, also watching the joists. They groan and shrill every time the carrier dips in the heavy seas, and he wonders how the Navy guys ever get any sleep at all. He guesses they just get used to it. He can feel Pagan’s anxiety about it; he doesn’t like this ship business one bit.

“Ajay, why does it look gold in the Drift? I’ve always wondered,” Pagan murmurs, apparently not sleepy either and trying to distract himself. Ajay supposes that neither of them are going to be sleeping while the metal box they’re in the belly of flops up and down on the waves.

“I don’t really know why. The Drift always looks gold like that, but there’s something about your mind that makes it look...extra gold, somehow. Like you’re gold in there. Bright and warm, like sunshine. Does that make sense?”

Pagan rubs the little diamond stud in his ear, something he does sometimes when he’s thinking.

“You don’t look like that. You’re different, and you don’t look anything like the twenty or so imbeciles they tried to pair me with before.”

Ajay’s intrigued. “What do I look like then?”

“You look...have you ever seen sunshine through leaves, my boy, how they sort of glow green from behind, and the light is...here.”

Pagan just claps one of his hands on Ajay’s bare forearm and they’re Drifting that fast, deeply and Pagan shows him _himself_ in here, which is incredibly disorienting. It’s not a memory of himself, it _is_ himself, current, like a mirror image.

The Psychs and Academy trainers say that you can’t do that, it’s impossible. Not harmful, just...kind of like trying to look at your own elbow. But Pagan doesn’t give a fuck about what you can and can’t do in here; he rides roughshod over whatever rule he pleases. It probably has something to do with his uncanny ability to show Ajay things from his imagination, which is also supposed to be impossible.

That’s one of the big parts of what make them such a damn fine team; Pagan can draw on his experience, his tactical skills, get a read on what the Kaiju are likely to do, imagine it...and then show it to Ajay just as clearly as if it had already happened. Along with three or four other imagined scenarios, ranked in order of likelihood. It’s amazing. No one else can do that. It makes them a proactive force, not a reactive one. His mind is so strong, unstoppable...if they can get him focused on one thing at a time.

Though to be fair, he also shouldn’t be able to stimulate his physical brain with his Drifting mind, not without a hell of a lot of training...but he does it, reaching out and stroking orgasmic euphoria in Pagan’s mind and then sharing the shuddering pleasure of it with him.

That’s another of those things that they don’t really talk about.

He sees what he means though, about that green-tinged golden glow. It’s...nice. Pleasant. A calming counterpoint to Pagan’s hot sunshine. He likes it, that he looks like that.

Pagan preens a little at the idea of Ajay thinking that his mind is strong and unstoppable, and Ajay thinking about that euphoric thing makes him remember it with a little pleasured shiver. That’s all right. It’s not like you can’t _not_ think of things in here. But Pagan happily remembering that feeling is causing a little frisson of _heat_ and _want_ in him, all hot and jumbled together.

Pagan feels it and starts pulling away from him with wordless negation and it’s like icewater dumped on his desire.

Before he can really process it he’s thinking _I’m sorry, I’m sorry, don’t go, please…close, comforting_ at Pagan and himself begging like that makes him perversely angry, suddenly so pissed into their bond and then he’s the one jerking away from him. A blast of rage that he doesn’t understand, not really.

And then he does in a flash, a weight on him like a load of heavy bricks.

He has nothing, and no one. Pagan has a sister, people who work for him and admire him, an entire fucking kingdom at his fingertips…but he’s all Ajay has. All he has in the whole world…is Pagan. No home, no family left, except for him. The shallow friendships he’s developed over the years have all withered and died. His mom shouldn’t have died before she even made it to fifty and left him absolutely alone, not fair, not fair. Like he’s been cheated, robbed of something like a stupid, self-pitying child, an orphaned child and he tries hard to shove those feelings down. He’s known since he was six that the world isn’t fucking _fair._

He doesn’t want to want Pagan, doesn’t want to need Pagan. _Doesn’t_ need him, he tells himself, as he strives for some measure of fucking self-control.

Pagan’s watching him with wary, shadowed eyes, backed up as far from him in the small space as he can get. _My fault,_ Pagan thinks, _my fault._ He can’t hide his desires from Ajay either, as he feels Pagan try to kill his nervousness, his anxious _fear, so trapped,_ a tiny being in a fragile shell in the middle of a great storm. So many storms; here, the Kaiju, Kyrat, all of it in upheaval and Ajay is the one stable point in his life. His partner. His friend. Ajay told him so and he believes him, the only person in all the world he can trust, that knows him to the bottom of his bloody black depths and somehow…loves him anyway.

 _Do you actually think Yuma cares in the slightest for me? Loves me? A deep well of bitterness there. Think again, boy, think again._ And in despair: _I’m losing it all._

Pagan fights to crush that bitterness down, his raw fear down but he can’t, he can’t, and in his shame he wants to reach out and _hold, and be held…_ but that’s not what Ajay wants. All Ajay wants is the one thing that he can’t give him. A weight, a block around his heart that he can’t break through to feel desire, especially with that raw anger of Ajay’s mixed up in it, _no…_

Ajay can feel him trying to pull his mind away from his just to achieve some equilibrium and it makes him want to cry, that he’s hurt them like this and can’t make himself _stop._

“Shhh, it’s all right, Ajay, it’s all right…it’s going to be all right, darling boy. Tomorrow they’ll turn us loose and we’ll kill every last one of those fucking things, and we’ll both feel much better.” Trying to comfort _him,_ for fuck’s sake.

That’s what he says, but what he feels is _helpless, to fix this,_ and Ajay closes his eyes in shame. He’s being an absolute asshole, when Pagan just…needs something, someone to hold onto, and he turns around and feeds him that turned-on bullshit instead, hurting them both. He reaches for Pagan’s mind and nestles close, rubbing warm and gold against him, and he reaches out to touch his bare and sweating shoulder.

Pagan’s face gives away nothing about what he’s feeling, but his muscles are clenched hard in distress. Ajay doesn’t know what to do besides scoot closer and wrap him up in his arms, bare skin to bare skin. Pagan’s _trapped fear_ beating cold and desperate at his mind killed any arousal in him. Pagan stays stiff against him as if he’s not sure that, having gotten what he wanted, if he really wants it after all. If it’s worth the cost.

 _No, it’s not like that. Keep you safe, always, always, love you, we’ll be all right, us together safe_ and Pagan finally relaxes against him, not in happiness or any real relief; just exhausted and unable to deny himself the comfort anymore. Ajay can still feel his anxiety like a physical pain, a hot tight ball right below his chest. He puts his own hand there and tries to gently rub it away.

They lie there for a long time, not asleep but not all the way awake either, half-dreaming.

Pagan’s found a place to escape his misery for a little while, a memory of an autumn forest that he’s wandering in, golds and reds and oranges against the dark trunks and the air all crisp and clean with the sweet smell of dead leaves. Pagan offers the same escape to him, his own hand pale gold like the leaves as he holds it out to Ajay in their minds. A peace offering, and the undeserved sweetness of the gesture makes his throat burn a little as Ajay takes his hand, warm and safe, as they walk through that forest together.

 _You’ve given me so many of your good memories...I want to give you one too._ “This…this is the happiest one I have,” he whispers to him in the dark. He stills the motion of his hand on his chest, and builds it in their minds.

Cool night air parts the curtains and makes them billow from time to time, letting the moonlight into his bedroom in bright shafts that fall across his race car bed. Mom sings to him and strokes his hair. She’s so young and lovely and her sweet voice is barely louder than the crickets singing outside. A Kyrati lullaby that he never learned the words to.

 _I know them,_ Pagan whispers in his mind. _Always, she sang that song to…to the both of you. To all three of us,_ and Ajay tightens his arm around him when he feels moisture against his shoulder.

_I didn’t mean to hurt you, I'm always hurting you but it’s all…”_

_It’s all bittersweet. I know. It’s all right._

And in this now, Pagan takes a deep breath, two…and hums that melody to him, low and resonant in his chest. Ajay rests his face against his hair and breathes him in, his smell that’s become the scent of home.

Both weary and battered and heartsore… _but we’re okay,_ Ajay thinks.

_We’re okay._

They finally fall asleep like that, Pagan’s slow breaths against his throat as the black depths of the stormy Pacific surges under them again and again.

 

Their private lives might be a hot mess, but in the Badger they’ve never been stronger or better. Together, they become the scourge of the Kaiju, undefeated, and for every country they skirmish in their crew affixes a little flag decal on the outside of the Badger’s conn pod.

Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Russia, China, Singapore, the Philippines, Japan, Nauru, the good ol’ US of A.

They’re such a good team, the Badger so fierce, that the PPDC keeps shipping them out all over the Pacific. They work with teams of Jaegers from every Shatterdome, they see combat everywhere and somehow, someway, they’re keeping the Kaiju pushed back. They’re _winning._

In time, they get used to traveling across the ocean on that big carrier. They even get used to continually having to step over each other. The accommodations are shit and the food worse after the relative luxury of the Dome, although Pagan has to be the only man that Ajay has ever known that will turn his nose up at _pancakes,_ the only really decent thing on offer.

Ajay finds a sheltered nook near the conning tower that will just about fit the two of them and they often bring blankets and spend fair-weather nights out there, under a sky that looks like an expanse of black velvet. And the _stars;_ Ajay had no idea that they could look like that. Not just strewn across the sky, or spangled, that velvety expanse is positively cloudy with them, out here so far from lights or the haze of pollution. They watch them for hours at a time, elbows pressed together in the small space, Pagan delighted by his delight.

 _Home,_ it reminds Pagan of home, and winter nights with the starlight reflected off the snow so brightly you could read out there, and an image of himself as a younger man actually taking a book outside to try it. Simple pleasures.

_I never had a friend, to share that with. Not like this._

“Yeah,” Ajay murmurs into the dark, as he shifts a little closer to Pagan; he radiates heat like a furnace and they’re far north of the Equator on this trip, heading for Anchorage. The nights are getting colder and colder. “Yeah, I know.”

 

\-------------------------------------------


	13. In the Heart of a Star

\-----------------------------------

 

The next drop, a week later, is when things really go to shit.

It was supposed to be routine. It should have all been so routine.

A Class IV Kaiju rising out of the sea like the fabled Leviathan to strike at Kodiak Island.  If Hong Kong is the mind of the PPDC, then Kodiak is its beating heart, home of the Jaeger Academy.

Not that a higher class Kaiju like that was anything to ever be taken lightly, but they’d faced the big ones before. Immense, especially compared to the little Badger, but they had backup and Tendo Choi’s counterpart in the Anchorage Shatterdome was feeding them the data they needed. Maybe they had gotten a little arrogant, just a little cocky. Tendo had warned them on their very first solo run: Just when you think you have these fuckers pegged…they’ll surprise you.

The J-Tech Chief for the Anchorage Shatterdome, Lieutenant Bradley, is droning the weight and size estimations in their ears. “According to the longrange scans it definitely appears to be a spitter type,” she informs them, and Ajay groans. He _hates_ these fuckers that can spit caustic shit at them. “The Science folks have named this one Acidophilus.”

Silence for a beat or two, then Pagan cuts in on the comms channel; his precise, rough-silk voice a little confused, but bright and cheery all the same. “Hold up a moment...is that not the shit that's in yogurt?”

Base Comm absolutely erupts in laughter. There’s something about Pagan's manner that makes it even funnier than it ought to be. That posh boarding-school accent of his isn’t that uncommon in Hong Kong, and Pentecost is a Londoner himself…but among the Canadian and American crews it _really_ stands out.

“Yeah, yeah, it is. Goddamn, that’s a shitty joke,” Ajay says, and shakes his head in bemusement as the muted laughter continues. “A real fuckin’ groaner, guys.” The worst part of it is that it almost _sounds_ like one of the Kaiju names that crazy Geiszler would have come up with.

“Hey, you’ve had your fun…minds back on business, yeah?” Bradley barks at her crew. Ajay knows a lot of them are new…they always are, at Anchorage. Fresh out of the Academy. Well, on paper, so is he, despite all those decals on the Badger’s pod. Hopefully their idiot joke settled some nerves in Bradley’s people.

 

The Yogurt Kaiju or whatever, in true Class IV style, is _enormous,_ nearly as large as their fucking carrier. The Badger looks comically small in comparison, as he and Pagan square off against the thing out on a convenient sandbar. Much like that time with Scythe. But they have distinct advantages against these big Kaiju, the main one being that they’re just too small, too fast to hit. If it does manage to slam one of those massive paws into them they’ll end up on a one-way flight to Vancouver, but they’re not going to let that happen.

No, the real danger of Yogurt is going to be the secondary weapons system it comes equipped with to deal with small human annoyances such as themselves; in this case, fucking acid. As they fling themselves at the thing’s face in a rising strike to distract it from its slow crawl toward Kodiak Island, it turns to them almost lazily. The impact of the blow reverberates through their hands, their arms…no damage done against the armored skull and faceplate, even though they’d swung the big blade full-force right into the thing’s ugly reptilian snout. It too looks comically small against the bulk of the creature, but there…

 _Right there,_ Ajay thinks. _The acid reservoir on this one is exposed, right under the chin. It’s much softer skin, look, because it needs to expand and contract. A weak point._   He examines it closely, eyes running the length of the mammoth body. _Maybe the only weak point._

 _Ah, yes. A shame that it’s also so very close to that maw full of sharp teeth, the very orifice that the acid sprays from,_ Pagan thinks with dark amusement. _Oh well, can’t be fucking helped,_ as they hold each other close, foreheads pressed together in that gold place, as they sink down into each other.

Nothing after that but the blade, the dance, the exquisitely warm pleasure of being One.

Yogurt makes that deceptively lazy turn and fires its opening salvo. The stuff hisses and throws up clouds of steam when it hits the patch of cold seawater where they decided they shouldn’t be, Pagan reading it perfectly. Not just acid then, _hot_ acid, the realization prompting a little dismay into their bond from Ajay. The part of them that is Pagan nuzzles at him reassuringly even as they dodge again, edging closer and closer to the mark with every evasion. Another dance, this anticipating where those jets will go and simply not being there for it. Smooth as flowing water in the big machine that seamlessly becomes their joint body, the hum of the reactor their combined breath.

Closer, and yet closer. Just out of reach of those massive clawed paws that could slam into them, grasp them, and rip them in two with so little effort.

But fuckin’ Yogurt won’t get the chance, as Ajay extends their own claws.

_Now._

A hard sprint carries them right under the massive jaw as the huge, muscular arms fly towards them. Ajay shoves their left arm out to the side and braces for impact as the Badger’s steel claws sink into the leathery meat of the Kaiju’s swinging palm as the monster screeches above them, deafeningly loud. That paw recoils in pain as Pagan neatly avoids the incoming hammerblow of the other fist with an agile twist of their torso, the claws missing them by inches as Ajay slams their other hand onto the hilt of their sword. Together, they finish that smooth twisting motion and use the energy from it to slam the blade up into the acid bladder, through the leathery skin of the sac into the jaw as they shove with a whirring of servos and their own strong legs, piercing the roof of the cavernous mouth and sliding that length of honed steel home. Right into the center mass of the thing’s brain.

Ajay has the presence of mind to leap back and away as the sac gushes hissing, glowing blue fluid everywhere, as Pagan has the presence of mind to just let go of the sword. Yogurt crashes face-first into the sandbar with an earth-shaking impact, impaling itself even further on the blade. The hot blue glow leaves its eyes as the entirety of the massive body sags.

A slow, trembling sigh of relief from the both of them. It’s over.

Together, they shove at the thing, pushing the massive head to the side with a clawed foot as they stoop and tug their sword free before the acid can eat into it, the metal already a little duller than it was.

 _Oh, poor Badger, poor girl…we’ve gotten some of it on us,_ Pagan thinks, moving them into the shallow water off the end of the sandbar to try to rinse off. He runs their hands over the damaged sections of the body chassis in dismay, the finger joints catching on pits in the metal.

 _It’s all right, we’ll get her fixed up, good as new. Gary will get the crew on it soon as we get back,_ Ajay thinks, and then follows it longingly with _hot shower, hot food, cold drinks, sleep,_ as Pagan picks it up too, tired but in good spirits.

_God, yes. Orange taste, blue taste, good cold water. Us in bed, not as nice as in the Dome but it’s…_

That was Pagan’s last thought, abruptly cut off as the trap springs on them.

Yogurt was a mere distraction. These are their true enemies, the two Kaiju who were slowly, silently stalking them from underwater. Their own trick with Scythe used against them, but unlike Scythe, they don’t have the capability to sense vibration the way the Kaiju can. Unlike Scythe, they don’t have the slightest warning as the two leap on them, one from each side of the sandbar. A trap perfectly sprung; for unlike Yogurt, these two were probably chosen to be the most difficult for them in particular; small and strong and ferocious and _fast,_ and they’re already tired, nearly exhausted. Completely blindsided.

Before Ajay can even press the comm button on his gauntlet to scream ‘Mayday,’ his section of the conn pod crumples inwards, pierced by a massive spike. The hull breach alarm screams as the Badger slews sideways and then back again from the second impact with another crunching, screeching blow, as something swats him like a bug and his mind is suddenly filled with the sharp and heady spike of Pagan’s _fear._

Some loose piece of the Badger’s interior structure smacks Ajay right out of the cradle and pins him down, _hurts,_ and things keep going in and out of focus, his hearing going dim and then coming back again. This matters but only distantly; all that really matters is Pagan, because Ajay can sense him suddenly teetering on the raw edge of horror, of rage.

The scream of rending metal strikes Pagan’s mind like a hammerblow: _Ishwari screaming and screaming and screaming where’s Ajay WE’RE FLYING APART NEED TO HOLD US TOGETHER_ like a thunderclap in their shared mind, and when the pain hits him from Ajay’s ribs, his knee…Pagan goes _mad._ He roars in purest rage, so loud and raw that it overloads the mics in his helmet and Bradley has to yank her headset off.

"Good god, it's a Triple Event...Badger, hold on!  You have backup incoming, T-minus two minutes!  Just hold on,"  Bradley yells back, but two minutes in a fight is an eternity.  Their backup had already been in the process of returning to Base.  They'll never make it in time to help...it's just them.  Just the two of them.

The fury in Pagan's mind is a hot rising insanity that turns that gold to burning orange magma, and god, the raw _force_ of him is like an inferno, like the heart of a star. He _wants,_ and what he wants is _Ajay safe_ and he wants _blood and pain and terror_ leveled at the Kaiju, _blood, blood in a warm red wash over his hands_ but in his rage and pain and madness he’s confused. The Kaiju don’t bleed like people, just that blue toxic shit. The only red blood he’s going to get is his own, already dripping from his nose, down over his lips, and with a jolt of own raw fear Ajay can _feel_ just how close he is to redlining, so fast. Everything going red, the interior lighting, the warnings on every board, every display, their gold space tinged red like blood.

 _Pagan I’m here, not lost, right with you,_ holding him in the middle of that hot storm but he’s past hearing, past feeling him…he’s the one who’s lost even as hacks at one Kaiju, slams the gauntlet claws into the other's side as it screeches and backs away.

Even though Pagan can’t hear him they’re still bound so tightly, the way stress always pushes them closer together rather than prying them apart. He’s solo-piloting the Badger but it’s going to kill him, Ajay can feel that too. Way too much raw power pouring through the Badger’s neural link for just one brain, one body to handle. It’s going to kill Pagan, which will also kill him, and the Badger will die, and Anchorage will die, all those cadets training to stop these shitbags, and then Hong Kong and Kolkata and Kyrat, those beautiful mountains leveled, and the whole _world_ will die.

It’s that thought that allows Ajay to maintain consciousness for a little longer, fighting that tunneling at the edges of his vision with everything in him. Even though he can’t physically move with him in the cradle he can take as much of the neural load as he can as the Badger stumbles, clumsy as she never is when it’s the both of them, missing her primary pilot. Pagan’s heart is beating so hard, so fast, thrumming, _thrumming_ in his chest that he can feel the echo of it in his own.

The Badger may stumble a little but Pagan’s aim is as true as ever as he cleaves a leg with the big blade and slams the hilt into the Kaiju’s ribcage with bruising, cracking force on the return stroke and is just not there for the counterattack. One of his ghostily subtle dodges and the Kaiju’s head goes flying from a reversed swinging blow it never saw coming.

That leaves the last one, maybe two body lengths away, already injured. But they certainly are too, and Ajay’s going under finally, like icy water dragging him down. His thoughts are growing slower, muddy and confused and disconnected and all he wants in the world is Pagan’s arms around him; his real arms, solid and warm and strong.  The smell of him, of _home._

 _Pagan. Pagan,_ as he sinks away from his hot sunshine and into the dark.

 

\-----------------------------------

 

Pagan smiles, if it can be called that, a thing of too many teeth, stained with his own blood. A tiny, distant part of his mind, his heart feels the _greengold leaves_ that is Ajay start to slip out of him, out of that space in the center of him where he belongs, and that jars him just enough to feel a little frisson of fear.  An emotion that pushes a bit of his rage aside. He holds onto Ajay desperately, the other part of his soul, cradles him there inside himself with all his iron-willed stubbornness. Curls around him softly, protectively. _Love you._   Cool and green and _beautiful_ in the heart of a combusting star.

With his heart beating like a triphammer and head thudding in time with it, Pagan braces himself to make their last stand. The roaring pain in his head merely feeds the conflagration in his mind.  Roughly twenty seconds from seizing, he snarls and surges forward to meet the last Kaiju’s rushing charge with thirty feet of electrified, hardened steel.

 

\-----------------------------------


	14. A Weight Lifted

\-----------------------------------

 

Every muscle on fire, Pagan hisses a curse and manages to slap the main power switch, freeing himself from the cradle and shutting down the neural link between them and the Badger. Outside, the last Kaiju’s death throes are still battering at them; one strike is hard enough to slew the Badger sideways, but he can’t do anymore, can’t even move them. He stumbles toward Ajay, tasting blood, his vision graying at the edges, and a sharp sway of the flooring under him drops him to his knees. With a last groaning effort he hauls his battered body across Ajay’s, to try to protect him from anything else falling on him.

He can’t get his hands to stop shaking. He carefully pulls Ajay’s helmet off, easy, easy, make sure he’s breathing, keep his neck still; he can feel him deep inside himself but it’s dim, distant. Where’s his own helmet? Gary’s going to yell at him again for throwing it, a bad habit of his...

Pagan shoves that thought away. Unimportant. He’s confused and not tracking well and knows it, a distinctly odd feeling. He curls himself more tightly around Ajay, the squeaking of the carbon fiber of their drivesuits rubbing together loud and painful in his abused brain. Ajay’s hum growing dimmer by the moment. He nuzzles his face against his, unaware that he’s smearing his own blood all over him and wonders vaguely if he’s dying, if they’re dying, if this is what it feels like.

_If that’s true, then I want to go with you. It’s always been the two of us in this...don’t go where I can’t follow, my lovely boy, please...I don’t know how much longer I can keep doing this, this losing people that I love, being the one left behind. And I do love you, so much. I wish now that I’d let you kiss me, as much as you wanted. Made love to you. The way you wanted me was so sweet and clean and bright, such a pure thing. Beautiful, like you. Something a bitter old man like me hardly deserves. But I...that weight was so heavy, Ajay. I gave her everything I had to give; my body, my heart; my soul, if we have such things. I didn’t know how to let that go, how to put it down to let you in, but now…now that weight is gone, like it was never there. Free to love you the way you should be loved…now that it’s too late. Too late, always too fucking late. For me, for you. I’m sorry dearest, I’m so sorry that I couldn’t be what you needed..._

The gray in his vision is spreading fast, and Pagan closes his eyes and lets it take him.

 

Some undetermined time later, he regains some awareness as he feels something tugging at him, pulling him away from Ajay, hands on him, no, no, _Ajay…_

In his confusion, Pagan rolls over and slams his armored fist directly into the face of one of the med team. The sight of the shining black gauntlet gives him pause; familiar, but not, and the sight is trying to jog his brain into telling him where the hell he is and what the fuck is going on as the med technician’s shocked bellow rings in his ears, as somebody else manages to slide in and depress a hypo into his throat, right above the neck seal of his drivesuit. He snarls and swings again at the sting of it, blistering fury as he tries to crawl back to Ajay and then someone’s weight drops onto his armored shoulders, pressing him into the deck. He tries to get an arm up, a hand on them to drag them off but his limbs won’t cooperate and he’s spitting blood on the floor in his rage and a hand touches him gently, gentle and warm, stroking the back of his sweating head.

“Ajay?” he croaks out, but no, Ajay’s in front of him, being loaded onto a gurney.

“Shhh, Pagan, it’s all right, it’s all right.” The voice is female, and at least familiar, although he can’t place it. But it agitates him that she’s calling him that; here, only Ajay calls him Pagan. Wrong. “The medics have him, see? He’s safe, you’re both safe now. He’s going to be fine, you’re going to be fine…” Low, and steady, and the hand is still stroking his head. It’s equal parts comforting and distressing. Only Ajay is allowed to touch him; to let anyone else…no one’s touched him with anything like kindness in years, besides Ajay. Wrong. Dangerous. Doesn’t want it. He tries to twist his head away and the hand is removed, but not the weight across his shoulders.

It’s Hannah, Rachel Hannah, the Psych, his mind unhelpfully informs him, as that gray takes him again.

 

The next time Pagan is aware of anything, it’s of her again, Dr. Hannah, sitting at his bedside. He appears to be back in the Dome’s hospital and not the tiny cubby of an infirmary on the carrier; the fact that the bed under him is blessedly still confirms it. Days then, perhaps, that he’s been unconscious.

Pagan grimaces and ignores her completely. The first thing he does is croak Ajay’s name, just in case he’s somewhere out of sight. The second thing is to cast his mind out, searching for his Ajay, but this causes an unexpected pain right behind his eyeballs, sharp and startling. Doing that has certainly never hurt before, as he lifts a hand and rubs at the crease between his eyes. He blames Hannah for it, which he acknowledges is not exactly logical, but he doesn’t much care at the moment.

“Good morning, Pagan. How are you feeling?” He really does wish she’d go elsewhere. Her voice is far too cheerful.

“Don’t fucking call me that, and where in the fuck is Ajay?” he grinds out in a thin croak, his voice rusty from disuse. The pain increases with what he’s sure is his spiking blood pressure.

“He’s all right, Min, he’s nearby. We’ve had you both out for a few days, mostly to let your brain heal a little before you re-link. I know you can’t help doing it, so it was safer this way. How do you feel? Does your head hurt?” That bland pleasantness that medical professionals use when the patient starts to get unruly. He’s heard it all before. Well, if they want to drug him unconscious again, this time they’re going to have to do it involuntarily.

Pagan narrows his eyes. “It bloody well hurts when I reach for him.” He scratches at his stubble, and it seems she hasn’t lied to him in that regard; there’s three, maybe four days’ worth, and he decides he’d outright kill someone for a toothbrush.

“That’s normal, it really is. It will heal and the pain will get better, probably in the next day or so. We’ll go ahead and bring your partner out of the induced coma as well. His brain is fine, but he took a beating. A few cracked ribs, some bad contusions, a wrenched knee. Nothing a few weeks won’t cure though.”

Hannah leans close to him, and he’s sure for a moment that she’s going to reach out and _touch_ him again, god, but seems to think better of it as he feels his face twist into a snarl of its own accord. The drugs are still making everything feel a little distant and wavery.

“Min, you’re fine outwardly, but you were the one that was injured more severely, do you understand me? You really are incredibly lucky. I knew that you and Ghale were some kind of prodigies, but the two of you were still linked a little after you had both lost consciousness. Your mind should be _fried_ right now, but however you did that…it saved your collective lives. Especially yours. We’ve never seen that before, and the data we recorded is going to have to be analyzed carefully. I’ll probably get at least one paper out of it…”

She seems to realize that she’s going off on an excited and perhaps unprofessional tangent and clears her throat.

“Your brain…linking with your partner is one thing, being bonded closely to him, that won’t harm either of you. To the contrary, it may speed the healing process since your brain makes those wavelengths naturally, on its own. At least, it does now. But we can’t put you in a Jaeger again. There’s just too much power running through that neural link for the damaged part of your brain to handle. The resulting seizures would kill you…and I’m afraid that particular damage is permanent.” She does reach out then, and very quickly and softly pats the back of his hand. “I’m…I’m so sorry.”

Pagan sits there, mind a whirling blank as he tries to process.

“So I’m leaving the program, is what you’re saying,” and he’s gratified to find out that his voice sounds stronger, more like himself.

“I’m afraid so, yes.”

“This is going to wound him terribly. You know that he loves me. Is _in_ love with me, and the lot of you forced that on him. Push, push, always shoving at him, from day one. Shoving at me too, when it comes down to it, and me in fucking mourning for his _mother._ Him _still_ mourning for his mother. Do you even care how much pain you’ve caused him?” Even sneering at her makes his head hurt worse, but he doesn’t give a shit. “Mmm, I expect you don’t. All of it just a minor sacrifice to the great Pan-Pacific Defense machine, eh?” The words create a bitter taste in his mouth, and he would have said none of it if they hadn’t drugged him to dizzy melancholy. Or perhaps the melancholy is merely the fact that he can’t see Ajay, can’t _feel_ Ajay, can’t find him at all, and Dr. Hannah is apparently his too-solicitous conciliation prize.

He doesn’t bother to mention how much it’s going to hurt him in turn to leave Ajay; how it stupidly took almost losing him, losing the both of them, to break that last block around his heart. Fool. He’d done the exact same thing with Ishwari. It took losing her the first time to really hammer home to him just how much he’d loved her, and here he’s gone and done it again.

Except, no. Not lost, this time.

Ajay’s here with him, is nearby, for all that he can’t feel the low hum of his consciousness. He’s _here._ And Hannah’s going to take him there. Or he’ll crawl, her choice really. Although if she brings out the syringes, all bets are off and he won’t hold himself accountable.

Before she can respond to that little confession of his, Pagan reaches up and wads his fist into the fabric of her lab coat at her shoulder and pulls. She goes with it, leaning over him and unsure of what he wants, and he bites back his hiss of irritation.

“No, stay there. You’re going to take me to Ajay, and I…I’m a bit dizzy, still. So you just stay steady, there’s a good gi…erm, psychiatric professional doctor person. Yes.” He watches the location of her hands with wary eyes as he gingerly swings his legs to the floor, expecting betrayal. But she reaches to help instead of going for her pockets, so he allows her to get an arm around his ribs and haul him up. He’s trembling all over like something newborn, and if it weren’t for the lingering fogginess of the drugs he’d probably be more disturbed by it.

Now, _now_ he feels what he ought, when he thinks about his Ajay. The ache in his chest, that giddy burning want deep down in his belly to match the desire that’s in Ajay for him. That heat, and how badly he wants to wrap him up in his arms and never, ever let him go. _Love you, love you, I’m coming to you_ he sends without even intending it, and already the spike of accompanying pain isn’t as intense as it was at first.

It wasn’t until he moves to take a step that he realizes how… _breezy_ things feel. “Good lord,” he mutters, and twitches the edge of his decidedly ill-fitting garment to try to get more coverage. But it was an exercise in futility, he knew it was; every hospital gown ever made left your backside hanging in the wind. He sighs in resigned frustration. It doesn’t matter. He’s going, bare-assed or not, disgusting or not, as he surreptitiously sniffs at his armpit and then immediately wishes he hadn’t. He even has blood on his face still, after _days_ in this place; it flakes off dark and rusty on his fingers when he rubs at his itching chin. Jesus.

After two wobbly steps he sighs again and has to wrap an arm around Hannah’s shoulders as well, needing the support. Tries not to lean on her too much, as he’s so much taller and heavier and frankly _stinks_ and is attempting to convey at least a minimum level of good health to any observers. Not that any of that really matters, as he refocuses his foggy brain on the task at hand. Get to Ajay. Nothing else matters, only that.

“Min, I’m really not sure you ought to be out of bed just yet,” she says in response to his clutching at her, but it’s a token protest at best. He doesn’t even dignify that with a response as he grits his teeth and shuffles barefoot out into the hall. “This way,” she whispers, guiding him by the arm around his ribs. This part of the Dome is utterly unfamiliar to him; the regularly scheduled poking and prodding by the medical staff takes place in a different part of the med wing. He’s not even entirely sure what floor they’re on, completely reliant on Hannah to guide him.

“Hey,” a male voice rings out behind them. “Where do you think you’re going, Min? You’re not cleared to be off bed rest.” Pagan grits his teeth again. That jovial, patronizing tone isn’t helping his head any.

“Oh, you know, just going to find Ghale,” he says airily, with a wave of his free hand. “Only my _partner,_ you see. Not my fault that you imbeciles neglected to put us together.”

“You’re a funny guy, Min. Real funny. Now get the fuck back in bed…Rachel? What the hell are you doing, he isn’t cleared to be up until tomorrow,” as the rude asshole spots Hannah on his other side.

“Aiding a foreign dignitary in rectifying your screwup, is what she’s _fucking_ doing,” he barks, as Hannah rolls her eyes, but he’s beginning to lose patience with this whole situation. His head is pounding like the worst hangover of his life, his thighs are trembling in an alarming fashion, and he never before realized how very _nice_ it was that his body generally kept his blood at an even pressure between his head and his feet. Sitting the fuck _down_ somewhere was becoming a seriously attractive proposition.

“Roger, it’s fine, I’ve got him. I’ll sign off on his chart if you need…Min, _stop,_ ” she says with a long-suffering sigh of her own as she bats his free hand down, the one he was using to wave a middle finger in Roger’s general direction. “Come on, before you fall on your face,” she snaps at him, dragging him down the hall with surprising strength, her arm like a steel band around his midsection.

The ward they have Ajay in is one long echoing room, not like the private one he woke up in. The beds closest to the door contain a man and a woman, both asleep; as they move quietly past them Pagan finally gets a glimpse of him, all the way at the back of the room. His heart leaps and thuds unsteadily at the sight of his dark hair against the pillow, his too pale face, all the tubes and wires. The distance between them suddenly seems so far, nearly insurmountable but before he knows it he’s by the bed and Hannah is fetching a chair for him and it’s so profoundly disturbing to see him, have him under his hands like this and not be able to _feel_ him. Not even the low hum of him that’s been present every day of his life for the better part of a year now. His mind knows it’s the drugs, the way they have him artificially asleep…but he still can’t stop touching him, stroking his hair, his face as he keeps feeling for his pulse, watching his chest rise and fall. Reassuring himself. He drops gratefully into the provided chair, clutching Ajay’s hand.

“Min,” she says, and when he looks up at her whatever it is that she sees in his face has hers softening. “I’ll leave you alone for a few minutes, all right? I’ll go and ask when they plan to stop the sedation, see if I can’t find you something to eat.”

He looks down at Ajay’s big hand engulfed in both of his, nearly as familiar to him as his own. “I would appreciate it,” he murmurs, running his thumb over the knuckles, absorbed in that.

“The two of you…it’s going to be okay. It will.” Pagan nods, not because he agrees in the slightest but because that’s what will get her to go away; he really doesn’t see how it could ever be even marginally okay and his eyes keep trying to fill, have ever since they walked into this room, and hasn’t he sacrificed enough of his dignity for one day?

Once she leaves, he tucks his head against Ajay’s. “I don’t know what we’re going to do,” he whispers, even though he knows that Ajay can’t hear him at all. “I’m right here, holding onto you, but to not feel you in my mind…it hurts, hurts terribly. So what will we do when they separate us?” He swallows hard. “There’s no place for me here anymore. I can’t stay with you, and…and I fear that if I don’t make it back to Kyrat soon, there might not be a place for me there either.” He does his best to push that down. Not helpful. Not _important._ The only important time is right here and right now, the only important thing is here under his hands.

Pagan knows, but he still can’t help himself as he lies there bent awkwardly over the bed, can’t stop his mind from reaching into that disconcerting blank again and again, searching and not finding. _This is going to kill me. Having to leave you is going to kill me,_ he thinks, rather melodramatically, and then immediately tamps down on that thought so as to not hurt Ajay with it, does it as automatically as breathing.  He's a man shouting into an empty room.  He sighs in frustration, head aching, eyes and throat burning…but eventually exhaustion wins out over misery and he drifts off anyway, his face pressed into Ajay’s shoulder.

A hand touching his own shoulder jerks him from a light doze, from a dream of an autumn forest that he’s searching for Ajay in, but it’s only Dr. Hannah. Back again, as promised. As he sits up and stretches the crick in his neck gingerly, she dumps a bundle into his lap: a packet of crackers, a bottle of water, and best of all, a clean set of scrubs. No underwear, but he’s not going to bitch about it, not when he can have both the front and the back of him covered at the same time.

“There’s a bathroom with a shower right through there,” Hannah says and points to a door he hadn’t noticed, on the other side of the room from Ajay’s bed.

“Oh, thank god,” he murmurs around a mouthful of cracker, washes it down with the blessedly cold water.

“I told the doctor that you’re up and about, so they’ll come and remove his IV and then it’ll be another hour or two before he wakes up.” As she turns to go, he reaches out and lays a hand on her forearm, squeezes gently in wordless thanks. She squeezes his hand in turn with a sad little smile. A truce.

Pagan showers with the door open so he can keep an eye on things through the gap in the curtain. The nurse comes while he’s in there, the despised Roger, but he’s quick and careful and gentle with the whole IV business and doesn’t even seem to notice Pagan’s hard eyes burning holes into his back. He’s able to relax marginally after that, glad to not have to kick Roger’s teeth in. He even finds a stack of plastic-wrapped toothbrushes in the cabinet, which cheers him considerably.

Now clean and at least semi-presentable, he gets a washcloth and pulls the curtain for privacy and washes Ajay up a bit, knowing he’ll be the happier for it when he wakes and that he’d rather it be him and not a stranger touching him. His poor boy, with his knee and his ribs all taped, awful bruises all over him as he swipes gently with the warm soapy cloth, keeping him well covered with the blankets so he won’t get cold.

Sweet boy, as he kisses his forehead and resumes his vigil, settling again with his head against his, dark strands of his hair tickling his nose.

 

\---------------------------------------------


	15. Right Here, Right Now

 

\---------------------------------------------

 

When Ajay opens his eyes slowly, flutteringly, the first thing he sees is Pagan’s blond hair, close enough that his breaths are ruffling it. Fast asleep with his head beside Ajay’s as he makes those little sleeping huffs of breath that he loves, the low hum of his sleeping mind warm and gold and nestled close and he sighs.

Only then does he groggily register that they’re not in their bed on the carrier like they should be, but they’re also not in their bed in the Dome either, and into his confusion creeps the quiet beeping of the monitoring equipment. _Hospital,_ his mind informs him. And then it all slams into him; offshore at Anchorage, Yogurt the Kaiju, the two unidentifieds and the trap sprung, the wild surge of Pagan’s hot, combusting fury. He’s not entirely sure what happened after that, what happened to _them,_ but they’re obviously very much alive and there’s no pain. Pagan is well enough to be sitting in a chair here and not be in a bed of his own, when he raises his head a little to see, so things can’t be too bad. It feels way heavier than it ought to, but that’s okay. He’s content to lay here and breathe in the comforting smell of Pagan’s hair until he can’t keep his eyes open anymore.

When he wakes again, Pagan’s still there with him, still close enough to reach out and touch…and that makes him want to crumple in pure relief.

“Oh, hello dear boy,” he says softly. He wasn’t awake enough to pay attention before, but Pagan looks pretty rough, in hospital scrubs and no makeup, his hair fluffy with freshly-washed static but with three or four days of dark stubble.

“You okay,” Ajay tries to ask him, but it comes out in a rusty, barely intelligible croak, so he reaches for him through their bond, touches his mind gently. _Are you okay, Pagan? What happened?_ And Pagan _surges_ into his, their gold hot and glowing and overwhelming as he’s engulfed in Pagan’s joy…but it’s also accompanied by pain, hot and sharp in Pagan’s head, he can feel it. His _missed you, missed you, worried_ leaks around it all. In the physical world, Pagan grimaces and leans forward to rest his face on the edge of Ajay’s bed.

Ajay reaches over and strokes his fluffy hair. And then blinks, as Pagan arches up into it a little like a cat, like he can’t help seeking that contact, and all the while his mind is…not quite right, a little slow, a little blurred feeling. He’s never felt anything like that before. Now _he’s_ starting to worry, as he lets his hand drop.

“Sorry, that was…I overdid it,” he says, muffled in the sheet. “Dr. Hannah said that I damaged some part of my brain, when I solo-piloted the Badger. Said that we were still Drifting a little even with you unconscious, which is apparently something they’ve never seen before and is the reason that we’re both alive now. I’ve no idea, only that I felt you slipping out of my mind…and I intended to keep you there, held onto you somehow. Apparently the dear doctor is going to get a paper out of it, so good for her, I suppose?” He looks up and shakes his head in something like bemusement, but then his face is serious again. “But Ajay…I’m done as a pilot. She told me that if I get back in a Jaeger it’ll kill me.”

Pagan says this last in a cool sort of tone, probably just to get it out, but inside he’s all pain and joy mixed, _sorrow_ and _Ajay, missed you_ and his heart lurches hard, like his chest is shattering a little. Pagan can feel it too, of course, and when he reaches for his hand he lets him take it, lacing their fingers together, lets Pagan scoot forward enough to drop his forehead against his shoulder, and Ajay lets himself bury his nose in his sunny hair, touch his lips to it while they sit there together and mourn for the Badger, for what they had.

It’s a long time before Pagan raises his head and gently slides his hand out of Ajay’s so that he can take his face in both of his. A more intimate touch, and he tries to suppress those little flares of both pain and joy that always happen when Pagan touches him like this because it’s never, ever enough, always afraid that he’ll do something insanely stupid like seize his shoulders and drag him close, mouth on his and that’s not fair to either of them, Pagan doesn’t want him, won’t ever, and the drugs they gave him are making it really hard to think, hard to push the tears down and his thoughts down because Pagan’s leaving, he’s _leaving._

If Pagan can’t be a pilot he’ll have to retire from the program and go back to Kyrat, where a civil war is raging. He’ll have to go and it slams into him like a load of bricks that part of his mind, his soul is walking around outside of his body; that this ridiculous man that he loves holds it safe for him but he’s walking away and can’t stop until he’s halfway around the world. Oh god what are they going to do, already it’s ripping him apart and he tries to jerk away from him, no idea how much of this he’s getting from him…Pagan’s hands are gentle and warm but inexorable as they hold him still.

“Shhh, stop. Don’t pull away from me, not now…I’ve been hurting you, and I never meant that. I never, ever meant that, dearest boy.” And his stupid tears must have spilled because everything’s blurry for a moment as Pagan wipes under his eye with his thumb. “I...I just... _fuck,_ ” Pagan mutters. He looks deeply into Ajay’s eyes, and Ajay finds himself trying to memorize that exact shade of brown, almost black at the edge and lighter toward the center. Pagan gusts a sigh that Ajay breathes in. “This is going to make things even harder for us when I have to leave…but I can’t help it, I…”

Pagan cuts off his own stumbling and inadequate words by moving so close that he can feel his warm breath as he leans in and, shockingly, presses his mouth to his.

In the Drift, where they touch all the time, that sense is a little muted, more like imagining the feeling of him. But this…the heat of his skin, the way he can smell him, _taste_ him is so much more than that, as he drags his fingers up the back of his neck to hold him there. And that kiss is so very Pagan; a little rough-edged but warm and achingly sweet, excited and trying to keep it in check…and not a single trace of the pity that Ajay was half afraid would be in it. He really should have known better. The notion that Pagan would do anything for anyone out of _pity_ is downright laughable. No, no pity at all. Just heat. Just _desire,_ Ajay realizes, and as Pagan’s tongue meets his, their bond blazes open full-force, gold and _right_ as that realization jolts hard down low in his belly.

Oh… _oh._

Stunned but recovering fast, Ajay struggles to wrestle him closer from the confines of his stupid hospital bed, grabs a handful of his hair and Pagan surges to meet him, still gentle but suddenly _urgent._ The warm golden pool of Pagan’s desire surrounds him and he goes willingly as Pagan draws him into it in his mind, simple _warm yearning, longing_ for him, to be closer, as close as they can possibly be. All for him.

_When did that change?_ As Pagan’s thumbs brush his cheekbones, as their tongues touch with a sensation that jolts like low and pleasurable voltage.

_When you almost died, when we both almost died. I was…I couldn’t feel anything, before that. Couldn’t feel this, what I should have felt for you,_ Pagan thinks, with a tinge of regret for lost time…then a raw surge of _heat_ that has Ajay clutching at him.

_Doesn’t matter. You want me now. Just me._

_Oh yes, my darling boy…yes, a thousand times yes._

“I have to get out of here, seriously. We have to get out of here,” Ajay murmurs against Pagan’s mouth, half pinned under his weight, suddenly desperate to be pinned under all his weight.

_Oh god, yes._ “No.” _You’re hurt, exhausted. I am too._ “Let me go get your doctor, tell him you’re awake,” Pagan says rustily, levering himself up from where he was draped over him with a herculean effort, when there’s nowhere else he’d rather be. His hair is a wreck from Ajay grabbing it.

“No, wait a sec. C’mere. Lean down,” Ajay says, and combs it with his fingers, Pagan with a little smile on his face. The sensation of that gold _longing_ flows up when he leans in for another, briefer kiss. A soft press of lips and almost pain as he pulls away, then ebbing to a low hum as he leaves the room.

Pagan doesn’t go far and isn’t gone for long. When he comes back, he has a doctor in tow, a man that Ajay doesn’t recognize.

“Hello, Ghale, how are you feeling?” He starts poking and prodding before Ajay can answer, manipulates his knee, which hurts, and then jams his stethoscope into his bandaged ribcage. He almost comes off the bed with a growling hiss, the pain stabbing right through the medication, eyes watering.

“It didn’t half hurt until you started fucking with it,” Ajay spits out, when he can get the air to say it, along with _it’s all right, I’m all right, I just wasn’t expecting it, please don’t hit the nice doctor_ …as Pagan grits his teeth.

“Attitude will get you nowhere, Cadet.” The doctor moves toward the door, flipping through Ajay’s chart. “I’ll keep you overnight for observation and then I’ll discharge you if your co-pilot agrees to keep an eye on you.”

“Of course,” Pagan answers, with just the slightest hint of offense.

“Follow-up in three days, don’t make me track you down, Ghale, I mean it. Nothing strenuous, keep the wrap on that knee, the tape on the ribs can come off after tomorrow, back on light duty in two weeks if everything goes well. Any questions?” He snaps the chart shut. Ajay shakes his head.

The doctor looks at Pagan then. “Ranger, I trust that Psych has talked to you, correct?” And this time his brusque voice is almost gentle.

Pagan nods as he looks at the floor, anywhere but at him.

“Well, I guess everything is in order then,” he says, into that awkward silence. “The two of you really are lucky. Three day follow-up, don’t forget it, Ghale.” With that he sweeps out past the curtain and down the aisleway of the long room.

As soon as the door clicks shut Pagan is on him like a flash, so fast that it makes him laugh as he props himself over him. Pagan’s mouth quirks into a little lopsided smile and it reminds him of that first day, the day they met and him looking up at Pagan from the mats, a wooden staff pressed to his throat. An asshole stranger who he worried that he wouldn’t even be able to Drift with.  What seems like a lifetime ago now as Ajay draws him in greedily, mouths colliding. Not able to get enough of him. A rush of shared pleasure as Pagan gently nips at his bottom lip, and then another, much stronger one as he reaches down and palms him through the sheet. At long last, what he’s hoped for, dreamed about for months and _months,_ one of those big warm hands on him _right there_ as he arches into it, god…

…and then it’s interrupted by _someone else_ clattering in. Ajay jerks away as if burnt. Pagan chuckles at him, low and a little rusty as he pulls back to sit down a respectable distance away in the chair.

_Not ashamed of us or anything,_ he assures him, _just didn’t want to get caught by the med staff groping each other._

Only mild amusement from Pagan, that and a little frustration at being interrupted as he tries to surreptitiously arrange himself. He settles for crossing his legs, and Ajay swallows at the thought of him getting hard just by kissing him…and then remembers that he needs to do a little rearranging of his own, strategically wadding up the blanket. Pagan tucks a hand under his, surprising him a little, just before the nurse pulls back the curtain.

_Neither am I, darling. Neither am I._

“Vitals check, Ghale. How long have you been awake this time,” she asks, peering into Ajay’s pupils, inflating the blood pressure cuff. But before Ajay can answer, she looks pointedly at Pagan and adds, “Visiting hours were up twenty minutes ago.”

“What?” Ajay says, incredulous. “He can’t stay? He’s my partner.”

The nurse raises one eyebrow a bit, looks the two of them up and down, taking in their flushed faces, their clasped hands. “Yeah, I can see that. It’s the regs though, Ghale. And he’s not even supposed to be off bed rest himself, or even in this _section._ Ought to be over in Neurology where he belongs. You can see him again tomorrow.”

A hot little flare of anger from Pagan at that snide attitude, but he pushes it down and lets go of Ajay’s hand with a little pat and gets up. “It’s all right, I’ll go back to my room like a good little soldier. I’ll see you after breakfast, Ajay. Sleep well,” is what his mouth says.

What his mind says, is _give me an hour and I’ll be back, I won’t make you stay here alone, I promise, they can’t keep us apart. Can’t sleep without you anyway,_ and he gives Ajay a sweet little smile, his back to the nurse. Shoves his hands into his borrowed pants pockets and turns and saunters out, only a little unsteady now.

 After the nurse leaves again and flips off the ward’s lights, Ajay lets himself drift off, trusting Pagan to come back, holding him warm in his mind. He’s not very far away. He can feel him right where he belongs, deep inside him, a low humming in his chest like a cat’s purr. Lulled by it, Ajay lets himself go.

 

He wakes to darkness in the unfamiliar room, lit only by the medical machinery, and the feeling of Pagan’s big hands on him. Pagan carefully levers himself over the bedrail and into the bed with him and all Ajay can think in that moment is _yes,_ to have him pressed warm and close, to be held. Pagan feeds that feeling back to him, a sweet resonance. He just _wants_ into their bond, _holding and held. Us together._

It takes them a minute to find the optimal position; the bed is small to begin with and neither of them are small men. But they finally get their knees and elbows sorted out, Ajay’s thigh in between Pagan’s and he’s so careful with Ajay’s wrenched knee, Ajay resting his head on the arm that Pagan has wrapped around his shoulders and they both sigh and relax at the same time. Fitting together like they were meant to.

Pagan’s mouth is on his again, and this time the tenderness of it is almost unbearable as Ajay feels his mind nestle close to his like warm velvet, and his mouth is like warm velvet too, and it feels so good to have him like this, pressed full length against him. Even their bare feet are entwined as Ajay tastes him, all the world filled with nothing but him, the two of them together. Pagan loves his smell, loves the taste of him too, _home,_ feeling it in his mind, _home, wherever you are._ Ajay wraps his arm around his shoulders, one hand down his collar to get at as much bare skin as he can, the other hand up under the shirt to run along his side.

They’re both still exhausted and in pain; he can feel Pagan’s headache, and he’s sure Pagan can feel the sharp ache in his ribs, the duller one in his knee…but that doesn’t matter. He can also feel how much Pagan wants him, the nearly giddy joy of it like a hot fire on a cold day. It feels so good to finally share that with him, _eager and excited_ in their minds but they both try to tamp down on the urgency of it so that it’s like a bed of coals instead.

Pagan’s warm hand brushing up his bare side under his gown is achingly sweet, him trying to soothe that pain that he can feel as well, while his tongue touches Ajay’s with equal gentleness. Ajay touches his head where he can feel that pain, rubbing his thumb along the bridge of his nose and up, softly, softly, and then back down and along his eyebrows. It seems to help some, almost a tingling feeling but soothing too, warm and gold and Pagan nuzzles his face against him in appreciation. He caresses Pagan’s whiskery cheek.

_I’m sorry that I worried you._

_You have no idea. I almost lost you…thought it was happening, right under my hands…_

 They almost lost this, almost lost each other, and he has a sudden, strong vision of the Badger going down, blindsided with it; the frothing ocean pouring in on them, of sinking down and down in a haze of pain and blood and icy water and Pagan shivers hard against him, hands clutching.

_No. No. Us, safe. Sunshine and greengold leaves,_ Pagan insists, fighting those thoughts. But he knows, as well as Ajay does, that it was close. So very close; they should both be dead, but somehow, some way, the two of them are safe here instead. His hands pull Ajay against him as much as he dares, afraid of hurting him and ready to let go instantly if he does, but he _needs,_ wants _inside you_ in a way that has maybe less to do with sex and everything to do with connection, and _love you, love you, keep you safe always,_ an affirmation as Ajay moves without thinking and has his mouth on his again, tongue thrusting gently, his hand on Pagan’s warm belly under his shirt, sliding down between them, and he can feel it in Pagan’s mind almost as clearly as if Pagan were doing it to him instead. He works the fingers of his other hand into Pagan’s hair.

_Yeah, I want that. Want to be close to you too, close as we can get right now. Love, warm pleasure. Want to touch you, make you feel good._

Another shiver against him for a completely different reason. He can feel him already growing hard. _Yes, yes_ …those coals flaring up as Pagan shifts back a little, just a little so Ajay can have enough room.

He’s never put his hand on another man’s penis in his life, but when he slips his hand under the waistband of Pagan’s borrowed pants and feels his heat, that velvety hardness, the hitch of his breathing against his own chest and mouth, the exquisite pleasure of his touch reverberating in his own mind…all he can think is _perfect, yes, this._

Pagan presses his forehead against Ajay’s and reaches up under his gown. He runs his hand down Ajay’s chest and belly the same way, carefully avoiding the monitoring patches and the tape, hot slide of his fingers over his hip and Pagan lets his his hand rest there a moment, heavy and warm. Just like that time they woke from that shared dream of heat and pleasure, but now there’s no shame in this shared arousal, none at all, as Pagan finally takes him in hand. He can’t help but arch up a little into that touch, that warm, slightly callused palm, god, and Pagan twitches in his own hand as those sensations reverberate between them, hot and alive. The connection they were seeking.

Right now it means everything, this touching each other for physical pleasure. The very last wall between them down, as Pagan rocks up into him with his eyes half closed.

Down at the other end of the ward, someone rolls over with a snort and a creak of bedframe. Ajay grins. _We’re not really alone in here. Need to be quiet…can you be?_ As he makes the next slow stroke just a little firmer.

_Evil, is what you are,_ as Pagan does his best to stifle the groan it pulls out of him.

Pagan’s hand on him feels amazing, so good that his eyes want to flutter shut, but it’s also distracting. _Let me do this for you. Please,_ and Pagan stills his stroking hand.

_Are you sure?_

_Yeah, want to watch you lose yourself in it. Want to feel it along with you,_ and Pagan shivers against him.

“You haven’t done this, have you,” he whispers to Pagan. “Haven’t touched yourself at all since I’ve been here, except for that one time.” That one night, that shared dream where the pleasure of it was all but washed away by guilt and shame and fear.

“No, not…not since then,” a throaty whisper against his cheek.

_Let me make it good for you._ He’s never done this before, but with the echo of it in his own mind it’s a little like he’s doing it to himself, except way better. A little disorienting but he can feel how _you like it when I do that,_ how he likes it a little tighter _just there_ and Pagan stuffs his own wrist in his mouth and bites down to keep quiet, and he feels that too. He’s already leaking, already a little close as Ajay spreads that moisture over him to make it easier and shudders all over at the increase of sensation, Pagan muffling a curse and trying not to make the bed squeak.

_So hard to stay still, when you stroke me like that._

_As soon as we get out of here, you won’t have to,_ and Pagan does buck up into his hand at that. “Shh, easy, easy,” even though he can feel him teetering on the very edge, like molten gold spreading through him, through both of them. Hot and sparking and vibrating with that tension about to break, at the very peak. But then he catches some stray whisper of a thought from Pagan, some idea about this being over embarrassingly fast.

_I don’t know why you’re trying to hold out,_ he thinks in genuine puzzlement, although it’s really hard to think at all with that sensation tingling through his nerves and that peak just out of reach. _Let go, let me have you,_ as he holds him steady and warm, body pressed close to his, as he also wraps his arms around him and holds him close in their gold place. _Come for me, Pagan._

And still holding onto him, he can feel it as Pagan lets slip that unsteady control and gives himself up to those sensations bursting through him, thrusts up into his hand twice and gasps and comes _hard_ in a dizzying wash of gold pleasure pouring through their bond. Ajay drinks it up eagerly with a shudder, all of it, the feel of him pulsing and throbbing in his hand, avidly watching the sweet drugged with pleasure look on his face. He expected it to carry him over the edge too, but it’s not quite enough, his cock so hard it’s edging towards painful even as Pagan goes limp against him.

_Don’t worry, I’d never forget about you, leave you in such a state,_ as he runs his fingers along his and then slides that big, warm, _slippery_ hand around him, slippery with his own spend, Jesus. He moans and Pagan muffles it with his lips, kisses him softly. He’s so keyed up that it only takes about five of those perfect strokes and he’s tumbling off that cliff too, hot and throbbing and good, as Pagan throws his head back and shakes as it washes through him, through both of them

The monitoring equipment beside the bed starts beeping loudly, _insistently._

“Oh _shit,_ ” he whispers. “Pagan…”

But he’s already scrambling back over the bedrail and hits the floor as he muffles laughter. Pagan rolls under the bed right as someone flips the light switch. He guiltily stuffs the sheet with the wet spot under his ass to hide it and rearranges the blanket in record time

_This is ridiculous. They’re going to see you under there._

_Hush boy. They won’t, the nurses think I’m sleeping peacefully over in Neurology. They didn’t have me hooked up to all these machine things._

The nurse named Roger swishes the curtain open and he can feel a growly kind of disgust from under the bed, like some kind of angry gremlin under there. “Ghale, got a big spike in your heart rate and respiration. What’s going on?” The equipment is still beeping, so Roger leans over and pushes the reset button.

“I just…y’know, had a bad dream. Sorry. Been through a lot lately.” He can all but physically hear Pagan snickering.

_Laying it on a bit thick, aren’t we now?_

_Shut up, I’m trying to get rid of him. That shithead’s already ruined our afterglow._

At that, Pagan touches him warmly through their bond, a feeling like he’d reached out and taken his hand. _Love you._

_Love you too, so much._

Finally, the guy leaves. One of his shoes squeaks annoyingly as he walks up the ward. The lights snap off. The door closes.

With a sigh of relief, Pagan rolls out from under the bed and gets to his feet, and Ajay holds his arms out for him. That earns him another of those winsome little smiles as Pagan climbs back in with him and gathers him up in his arms as best he can.

Tired, so tired, as he rests his head against Pagan’s shoulder. “Is your head okay? Did we hurt it, with what we did?” He didn’t feel that pain get worse during, but it’s still there.

“It’s all right,” Pagan murmurs. “She said it was all right, to touch minds, to be close to you. Dr. Hannah. Said it would help, actually. Although this was…probably not exactly what she had in mind,” as he laughs softly. And then seems to think it over. “Hmm, well. Or perhaps it was. She’s frighteningly perceptive.”

They’re both quiet for a time, savoring the feeling of everything finally lined up; touching out here, touching there in the gold, both minds and bodies nestled close. Warm love. Joy, tempered by a tinge of sadness, which they both know will color all the time they have left.

“Did she say when you’ll have to go,” he whispers against Pagan’s throat.

“No. But it won’t be for a few days, at the least. I’m supposed to keep an eye on you after you’re discharged, remember? Can’t do that if they’re bundling me off onto a transport.” He can hear how he’s trying for a little levity, but it mostly falls flat. “Right here, right now, Ajay. That’s all that matters,” Pagan says, gently nuzzling at him. “Although tomorrow, we’ll be back in our own quarters. No interruptions. Nothing but us. Ajay…I want to make love to you properly, if you’ll let me. Although, it’s…well, it’s been a long time. A very, _very_ long time, so I might not be all that good at it…but you’ll let me try, won’t you?”

“You’re fucking kidding me, right,” he whispers flatly. “Let you try? Are you fucking _kidding_ me? Jesus, I’ve only wanted you for _months and months now_ …” as Pagan catches his mouth with his, flaring happy contentment in his mind. Kissing leads to him running his hands up under his scrub top, has Pagan groaning in pleasure even as he’s frustrated by the clothing between them, by the tiny bed, by the fact that they both freeze as someone walks past the curtain on their way to the bathroom.

Ajay shakes his head. _I’ll take what I can get. Can’t get enough of you, your hands on me,_ already hard for him again.

_Ah, to be twenty-seven again._ Pagan smiles against his hair as he reaches up under his hospital gown again, right where he wants him.

“Yeah, just like that, that’s good,” he mumbles against Pagan’s shoulder, Pagan stroking him slow and warm even as someone coughs in the ward. Too lost in it to stop even when the bathroom door opens and closes again and whoever it is shuffles back off to bed. “That’s right, don’t stop…”

Pagan mouths hotly at his ear, nibbling until he’s shivering all over. _We’re going to set that bloody machine off again._

_Fuck it,_ as he grabs Pagan’s fist and arches into it and _comes,_ surprising even himself and flooding Pagan’s mind with that addictive gold pleasure…as the monitor beeps in protest.

 

After he manages to convince the nurse that he’s not dying or anything, and after a quick peek around the curtain, Pagan helps him up so he can get to the bathroom himself. The knee doesn’t hurt as badly as he was afraid it would, when he puts a little weight on it. The ribs do, but only when he takes a deep breath. After Pagan’s back in bed with him they both drift off for a while, not able to help it. Not wanting to waste a minute, a second of their time together but the aftermath of what they went through and the remnants of the drugs they used drags at both of them.

_Nearly lost you,_ Pagan thinks disjointedly, a hand twisted in his gown as the other arm pillows Ajay’s head. Like Ajay’s a dream he’s worried he’s going to wake up from.

_But you didn’t. Right here. Not going anywhere,_ his own hand wadded into Pagan’s waistband.  _It's all right._

 

Clutching each other, they sink gently into sleep as their soft breathing syncs up, sharing the same dream.

 

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**Author's Note:**

> As always, suggestions/comments/ideas welcome!


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